Geoff and Janet would be delighted to share their farm with guests of the b and b and we would like to take this opportunity to introduce our team, who you may see whilst you are on one of our tours.

Philip is our cow man and milks the cows and John Cleans the parlour and keeps all of the animals beds clean with straw.

When visiting the farm you may be lucky enough to see a calf born and we always enjoy showing our guests around on a guided farm tour. We have compiled a questionnaire, (which you can download by clicking here), which has been designed for the children to fill out during a guided tour. You may find some of the answers in the information below:

Farm History
Bassett Wood Farm is one of 14 farms on the Tissington Estate. We moved here in January 1995 with 30 Holstein Friesian milking heifers, 30 in-calf heifers, 75 sheep and ‘Chip’(1990-1998) the working sheep dog. Today we have bred up the herd to 140 Pedigree Holstein milking cows, 34 in calf heifers and 50 heifer calves. Additionally, we have 13 hens and a sheep dog called Craige. The family horses, Victor Meldrew, age 16, Super Mario, age 5 and Poppy 14 are very popular with our guests, as well as the our two welsh mountain ponies.
There are now 274 acres of grassland, some of which we graze and the rest is grown for silage (winter fodder).

The Dairy Herd
Our dairy herd consists of pedigree Holsteins which are predominantly black and white. We milk the cows three times a day in the winter months and twice a day in the summer.  This takes place in the herring bone parlour which has 10 units on each side, which are called ‘clusters’. The herd average 9016 litres of milk, per cow annually and the milk is collected every day by Meadow Foods. The butter fat content on average is 3.71, protein 3.09.

The female cows are known as Dams and the males are called Holstein Frisian Sires. The cows are fed silage or compound corn and must have access to at least 45 litres a day of water. The cows live under cover in cubicle housing and straw beds during the winter months, which is generally seen as ranging from October to April. The cows bedding must be changed every day and their slurry (waste) is used on the fields to supply nitrogen to the soil.  In turn during the summer months the cows are turned out to graze in lovely, lush grass.

Heifers have their first calf, when they are approximately 2 years old. The gestation period of a calf is approximately 9 months and one week and every cow has on average one calf per year. The cows rest (dry off) for about 6 weeks before giving birth to prepare their milk for feeding their baby. The calves stay with their mother for 3 days to suckle their first milk (colostrum) which is high in protein and antibodies and gives the calf the very best start in life. They later go onto being fed with milk from a bucket (2 litres, twice a day) and are offered corm pellets and straw and water.  As soon as they get older, they are grouped into families and stay in their groups until they are impregnated and have their first calf. Subsequently, they join the other ‘big girls’ in the milking herd.

When the calves are 38 hours old, they must have their ears tagged twice for identification. All cows must have passports or Cattle Identification Documents (CIDS) and register with the British Cattle Society so that can be traced. All the animals on the farm are wormed annually and treated with fly repellent in the summer. The vet visits monthly and the foot technician visits every 3 weeks or more regularly as required.