Robin Talbot: The main lesson from this winter? You can never have enough silage
I always believe you shouldn't wish your life away. But like many farmers, I can't wait to see the end of what has been a horrendous March. While there was a lot of talk during the snow - and rightly so - about checking in on your neighbours, I think that advice still holds.
I feel that people are under a lot of pressure at the moment, with feed getting scarce or gone, and virtually no growth yet.
If, on top of that, lambing or calving hasn't been going particularly well, it adds up to a troublesome mix.
On our own farm, we felt at the start of winter that we had ample silage in the pits and I was actually wondering how much we would have left over. But now we are down to counting the grab-fuls and how many days it will last.
I am happy enough we will have enough... but just by the skin of our teeth.
The main lesson we have learned is that you can never make too much silage.
Our priority now is to start turning some of the cows with bull calves out in small groups. At least that will lighten the load on the remaining feed. Although there is not much grass about, underfoot conditions have improved significantly. Checking the soil temperature before I sat down to write these words, I discovered that it is still hovering around 5C.
On a positive note, we scanned all the cows recently and were delighted with the results, except for one group.