EACH day John takes the suckler cows a big round bale of silage to supplement their grazing. Many of the cows are weaned but one or two calves remain with the suckler herd from several late calvers.

The silage is placed in a ring clamp, exactly big round bale size, which the cows can all cluster around and pull the forage through evenly spaced gaps, like spokes around a wheel. This morning a solitary calf was stood in the centre of the ring feeder bawling for his mum. How he had got into the ring feeder was anyone's guess, but he certainly could not work out how to get back into the field.

As soon as he saw John approaching he made a bolt for it. Straight through the spokes, lodging himself firmly half along his body. Two front legs out, two backs legs in. Off he careered, clearing the end of the field and bouncing his way into the main corral area. John seized his chance and shut the gates, confining the calf within the area. "You can imagine the noise," John said. "The cows were desperate, and the ring feeder was bouncing off the crash barriers around the edge of the corral." There was no way the calf would let John near, and indeed it was dangerous to get close to the mobile ring feeder. John stepped into the crush, waited until the calf and feeder got near, and cast a rope out to catch a hold of the feeder and lash it to the crush. The calf came to a halt, giving John time to go back to the farm and get a hacksaw to free the calf. But wreck the ring feeder.

Finding forage and grazing for the stock is difficult at the moment. Nearly three weeks we ago we applied for the new style movement licence for stock within the farm. The sheep are eaten up where they are. They are due to be put to the tups in just a few weeks and need to be in tip top condition for serving. We have had no news of the licence. John has been as polite as he can and as courteous as farmers have been asked to be, to the issuing officials. Made not a jot of difference. Instead the rules have been changed, without DEFRA informing farmers or vets, and we have just discovered, after days of ringing, that now field numbers are needed on the licence application, to say exactly into which fields the sheep are being moved. This on a licence, which is supposed to give you freedom to move your own stock, on your own farm. Permission to breathe please.

The vet, who knows how serious it is to move the sheep, is however prepared to sanction the sheep to walk over adjoining arable fields we own, to fresh, clean grass. This means that 160 sheep, and us, have to trail over 30 acres of newly emergent wheat. Can you imagine how delighted the sheep will be that John has provided them with tasty travel snacks, especially as they have been short of any fresh grass for weeks. And it is well nigh impossible now to get on the land to drill again if the wheat is destroyed. No wonder farmers are swearing down the phone at DEFRA. I am trying to convert John to e-mail correspondence, but I am afraid it is flogging a dead horse. Office workers are always on their computers and seem to prefer computer correspondence to answering the phone. It can easily take 15-20 minutes just for a simple query, and even then you only have the spoken word as evidence, whereas with an e-mail, as Jo Moore found out, once writ, it's there never to be forgotten. Or denied.

Updated: 10:59 Thursday, November 01, 2001