Before and After

Last week, we finished our construction work. Well, at least the first visit of construction to the 25 farms that were selected as treatment farms. We also did some follow up visits to farms we had worked on in the last three weeks but whose cows have not been using the stall for one reason or another.

On our second last day of construction work, we worked on three farms. The first I’ve nicknamed “cute calf farm” since during our first visit, the cute calf was tied just outside the cow’s pen. This heifer cow had never used her stall before but after a bit of work to give her a bit more space, she had a new place to call home. We got a call around lunch time from her happy farmer to let us know that the cow was comfortably laying in her pen for the very first time. (If nothing else, I was part of making a difference for this one cow on this one day!)

We then went to “break a leg farm” so nicknamed because we could very easily envision one or both cows doing just that. The cows were obviously not using their stalls (see picture below). After a great deal of panga work to loosen soil, hammering, sawing, shovelling, discovering the partial remains of a cow, measuring and sweating, the cows had a new place to call home. Remains to be seen if they like it as much as I do.

 

 

Our last farm of the day was a challenge of a different kind. It involved discovering that I react to Stinging Nettle. Thankfully I was only out of commission for 10 minutes as Anika and Derek worked on the wonderful renos. At this farm the stall were what we call not too bad, just a few bars to move and a “boob rail” to move up so it can be a neck rail. That being said, it still took a fair amount of time to finish, partially due to the not so happy neighbours that disagreed with the removal of a few boards on their side of the property line.