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This project successfully funded on 4th November 2025, you can still support them with a donation.
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This project successfully funded on 4th November 2025, you can still support them with a donation.
NO WINTER FEED due to 93% rainfall drop.Our award winning Jess's Ladies, their calves & 'sharing dairy' needs YOUR HELP to beat the drought
IN A NUTSHELL: This summers drought destroyed our organic pastures on our family farm-we have NO winter feed. Please donate now to buy winter feed, save our herd of ladies and be a part of our pioneering sharing dairy journey-where cows and calves are together all day, everyday.
We only utilise the excess milk to make award winning Jess's Ladies dairy produce and Kefir onsite for delivery to shelves nationwide, Kefir home delivery is available through our website.
We have launched our campaign to beat the drought on our tenanted farm and prove that relaxed farming can thrive.
Every pound helps feed a lady. Every like joins Jess's Ladies journey. Every share spreads our story.
After 68 years as custodians of our beautiful Gloucestershire farm with our herd of ladies by our sides, we're confronting the worst drought in our history. This year has brought just 24mm of rain during February-July – a staggering 93% drop in typical rainfall for our beloved Hardwicke Farm, Gloucestershire, during the peak growing season of our organic pastures.
Our clover, grass and herbal fields have simply been unable to thrive. Late frosts compounded the devastation, and our tenant farm now resembles a parched desert beyond anything we've ever witnessed.
The devastating result? Our 500-ton silage clamp – usually brimming with beautiful home-produced clover, herbs and grass ready for winter – sits completely empty. We've been unable to make ANY home-grown preserved food for the coming winter to feed our herd of beautiful ladies and calves and are having to supplement their summer grazing as the drought continues to keep them happy and well fed.
This drought hasn't affected everywhere in the UK – there are areas with plentiful organic forage. We must buy feed from those regions and transport it to our Ladies so they can enjoy the many prosperous years ahead of them.
We're Jess's Ladies Organic Farm Milk and Kefir – who have been making multi award-winning unhomogenised produce onsite in our own dairy at our family farm in Gloucestershire for the past 18 years. With our 'sharing dairy' approach, our 65 ladies and their calves live as one herd all day, every day and are milked less often in this more relaxed style of farming.
What makes us different? We only use the excess organic milk that our calves don't want to make Jess's Ladies produce, sharing the milk with them. The calves get priority – always, and our ladies live 3-4 times the national average with our more relaxed ethos .
It's about working alongside Mother Nature and letting natural flavours shine through in our multi-award-winning fresh kefir and organic produce. Made in our own dairy onsite at our family farm within minutes and on shelves and in homes all over the uk within hours.
We know the story behind every drop and every Lady who helped us make it-and we are very proud of everything we produce.
Our 65 Ladies and their calves have had to graze our entire 220-acre farm, including all the silage ground, just to stay well fed and healthy during this unprecedented drought. I will never compromise on their needs – but now I desperately need your help to meet them.
Without winter feed, we face:
This drought hasn't affected everywhere in the UK – there are areas with plentiful organic forage. We must buy feed from those regions and transport it to our Ladies so they can enjoy the many prosperous years ahead of them.
Our Emergency Shopping List:
The Mathematics: Each of our Ladies consumes at least £1,100 worth of silage over winter. With our silage clamp totally empty, this means a DAILY additional feed cost of £520 on top of what we would consider normal this winter.
65 ladies and growing calves, eating 8 bales of silage a day (plus minerals)costs a minimum of £65 per bale, giving a daily feed costs for bought in forage alone of £520 per day. Winter feed is typically supplemented for 5 months when the grass stops growing-but this year it may well be nearer 9 months, as feed is already following them at pasture since June.
The costs of this drought are huge-this campaign will attempt cover 5 months of that 9 months of forage feed costs caused by the drought.
With 65 mouths to feed, this is a £75,000 PLUS emergency and we can only guess how high costs in reality may actually get over winter in such an unprecedented drought situation.It is completely beyond our control and solely attributed to the 93%drop in rainfall. We need your help to raise these funds-we cannot do it alone.
Every pound you pledge goes directly towards purchasing forage to feed our ladies and calves -the more that is pledged, the more ladies we can feed. The effect of this horrendous drought in Gloucestershire is that stark.
We have to secure winter feed as soon as is possible -as prices climb each day and sources of quality organic forage become more and more scarce. We also need to continually support the non existent summer grazing.
Sadly even if it rained now, the natural peak growing window has passed for grass, clover and herbs. Being organic we cannot and will not interfere with these natural rhythms-we work with nature, even when she does not do quite what we wish....
Your support NOW means:
With your help, we can obtain feed for every single member of our herd of ladies and calves. Next summer, when the rains return, we'll celebrate together with a bring-and-share picnic and spring fling at the farm.
You'll meet every single one of our Ladies and their calves, tour our bottling plant and parlour, and experience this magical corner of the world with our farm teaming with wildlife(who have also had extra water and care throughout the drought!).
See first-hand why we do what we do, why what we produce here is so special and why sharing dairy holds such promise for dairy farmers and their animals everywhere..
This more than supporting one farm and dairy-it is about leading the way in proving that a relaxed style of farming can thrive. That cows and calves living together all day ,everyday isn't just possible-it is the start if a wider dairy evolution, with huge benefits for animals and farmers alike.
Producing some of the finest unhomogenised award-winning dairy products, 'Jess's Ladies Organic Milk and Kefir' onsite at our family farm fills us with huge pride each day. It is not lucrative ,but a lifelong vocation, passion and vision that fills us with determination to do the best we possibly can each and every day.
We like to think that our ladies, wildlife and our farming compliment each other in a very harmonious way and that 'Jess's Ladies' are an important part of farming's future.
We are asking for donations – but we're also inviting you to join a movement.
Our Ladies are worth fighting for. This special place, with these special ladies and award wining produce , deserves to continue inspiring farming practices and 'sharing dairy' long into the future.
🏆 World's ONLY 3-Star Great Taste Award-winning kefir
🏆 Guardian & Observer Best Food Producer 2019
🏆 Organic producer of the year
🏆 Champion dairy 4 consecutive years
🏆 Guild of fine Food regional champion
🏆 90+ Great Taste Stars & World Top 50 Food Listings
Featured on:
📺 Hairy Bikers Christmas Special
📺 James Martin's Saturday Kitchen
📺 NatWest Business Advert with Alison Hammond
📺 Cotswold Farmshop Channel 4
📺 BBC Farmers Country Showdown
Funding method
Keep what you raise – this project will receive all pledges made