Upland cattle grazing to improve habitats
The second farm in the Inishowen Uplands EIP chosen to trial the NoFence collars our focus was to improve the habitat for the local curlew in this area by grazing the cattle in areas to create the mixed height swards that the curlew uses to feed and nest.
Cows were weaned a week before we put the collars on. These cows were then trained by putting the virtual fence 5m back from the front gate ensuring that the natural habits of the animals were not stopped as this can cause difficulty when training the animals. This farm had no issues with signal problems and training went very smoothly and after a week the dry cows where then put back to the area with tall woody heather and Molina grasses to help open this up by grazing the best quality areas and trampling the heather and poor quality grazing into the ground.
The area before the cattle were focused grazed here
These tracks and openings made by the cows will also allow sheep to access the area as the overgrowth discouraged them from grazing here over the last few years. Over the coming years the sheep will enter this area more and graze on the new regrowth increasing the quality of the grazing and the habitat scores under the new ACRES scheme as the positive indicators wont be covered over by the rank vegetation.
The fire risk will also be less as the dead molinia grass dry’s over the winter and as temperatures heat up in spring this can cause a fire burden which if it catches fire can spread quickly destroying all vegetation and wildlife in the area.
Still more area to cover. The long woody heather and the seed head of the Molinia grass can be seen clear
An area the the cattle have cleared noting the broken heather and trampled grasses
The farmer here added small quantities off fodder to the diet due to the weather which encouraged animals to move to different areas ensure no damage is done to the peat and aiding the trampling of the heather.
Overall the animals were very content and looked very healthy even in the freezing temperatures we had endured in the run up to Christmas.
The cattle were removed in January as it got closer to calving time. All cattle were weighed before and after with an average daily gain of .17kg per day.
Cattle have returned the the area recently with already more greener area and notably more sheep going through this section of hill.
A quick fly-over of the area being grazed