The secret life of cows (first appeared in The Ecologist magazine, March 2005)

This piece is 8 years old, but a couple of people asked me for a copy recently; so I dug it out and on re-reading thought it worthwhile putting up again here. It brought back to me what a great day myself and Jo (the photographer) had at Kite’s Nest, in the company of the Youngs and other animals…

In intensive livestock farming, animals are too often viewed simply as units of production to be ground relentlessly through the system. As Robin Maynard found, nothing could be more different than at Kite’s Nest in the Cotswolds, where the farm animals are actively engaged in deciding how the farm is managed.

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