The farm with a waiting list to help move cows

A farm in Jersey has begun a unique tradition by using human volunteers instead of barriers and trailers to move cows between fields.

Clairval Organic Dairy Farm said over the past two years it had been calling for volunteers every couple of months to help move its herd between grazing fields in St Saviour.

Fifth-generation farmer Zoe Marshall said they usually had between 20 to 30 volunteers helping block off other roads, fields and traffic as they "run them down the road". She said they sometimes had a waiting list of those hoping to help.

Marshall added the method was not that common in farming but it took "a village" to make sure "every little nook and cranny is blocked off".

She said: "I don't think it's normal anywhere, to be honest - one day we tried to do it with just us and it was chaos, cows jumped, you know, field walls, everything.

"So without owning a cattle trailer and without asking other people to sort of bring their cattle trailers and use their staff, we thought we'd give it a go and it's stuck, it worked and we've sort of run with it from there. "

Marshall said its volunteers were made up of "mainly adults".

"They love it, and it's a bit of a guilty pleasure for them," she said.

"Some people do drop out if the weather is horrific and I don't blame them, but sometimes we have to say we actually have too many volunteers and we'll let them know about next time."

Marshall said the cows had been moved most recently because of "a very muddy field" and said the next time would be "their last stop before the maternity ward".

Multiple generations of Marshall's family have farmed at Clairval since the late 1800s - herding a farm of "100% original population".

Marshall said the farm expected to birth "around 30 calves" within the next 12 months.

"We've got four in the barn now that are due to calve any minute now and then eight ladies that we're bringing home will be calving sort of around the summer."

In January, during Storm Goretti, Marshall said the farm had "one of the longest nights" looking after the cattle. She said the cows were like family to them.

"Jersey cows are as magnificent as the rest of the world thinks, and they're our babies, they're our absolute world, they're family to us.

"I think it's really very important that we get to share that with other people."

At the farm's most recent herding, more than 30 volunteers turned up to help move the cows.

Three of them were Ash and her friends, who work in the corporate world, who came as they "wanted to do something different".

"We all love animals, and it was just something fun to do on a Saturday morning that's slightly out of the norm."

Karina said the volunteering was an "excellent" experience and had a "nice community spirit" to it: "Traffic jams with cows is very Jersey."

Neville, from Les Amis, said helping herd the cows was "really exciting" and carer Sammy said "it was a new experience" for the charity.

"A couple of them were quite worried about patting them, but they got stuck in and they really enjoyed it," she said.

Teacher Michaela Byrne helps out at the farm on the weekends: "I only came up to feed the baby cows and I never left."

She said the experience was always "chaotic but amazing that everyone can come up and help".

"When everyone comes and everyone gets to see and experience what we do, it's just a beautiful experience for everybody and it's exciting and they get to see what we're all up to.

"Get your children in a pair of welly boots get them out there, it's just a bit of mud, they'll be fine let them experience everything."

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