Cow Appeal
Welcome to our Cow Appeal page - the best place to find out more and keep up to date with Nottinghamshire Wildlife Trust's major new fundraising appeal!
Have you herd?
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Over the next two years, we want to raise £25,000 to purchase our own herd of rare breed cattle, which we will use to graze and help preserve wildflower meadow habitats in Nottinghamshire, especially around the Trent Vale area.
We are aiming to buy 11 Lincoln Red cattle - ten cows & one bull - to establish a breeding herd.
We'll be adding to this Cow Appeal page throughout the duration of the Appeal, so keep checking back for details of all kinds of events, ideas for fundraising, latest news and more.
There are many ways to donate to the Appeal - online, text or cheque. See below for details...
So why do we want a herd of Lincoln Red cows?
The simple fact is that over the past 50 years we have lost 98% of the UK's wildflower meadows. This valuable habitat was originally a product of traditional livestock farming, where farmers would graze locally bred cattle on their land. Grazing cows prevent the growth of other plants and shrubs, so wildflowers then thrive - great news for the wonderful wildlife that relies on this habitat for their survival.
Over the years, this sort of farming has been on the decline. Beautiful wildflower meadows have been lost forever, replaced by more intensive forms of livestock farming. We believe the only way to guarantee a future for our wildflowers is to reinstate traditional livestock farming as it used to be done.
We are a partner in the Trent Vale Landscape Partnership - an ambitious living landscape project focusing on the area along the River Trent, from Newark to Gainsborough. Through our Cow Appeal, we want to champion traditional grazing techniques within the Trent Vale and across Nottinghamshire.
If we raise £25,000, we will be able to buy own herd of Lincoln Red cattle - a traditional breed from the Trent Vale. Lincoln Reds were bred specifically to thrive on grassland habitat, with no need for fertilisers or other food sources. They are perfectly suited to this job - professional grazers who are a living part of our heritage !
We are working with local farmers, British Waterways, the Environment Agency and others to find areas of land which have not been grazed for many years, and will be using our conservation grazing experience to improve threatened grasslands.
Our herd will also help us to demonstrate the landscape and biodiversity benefits of traditional livestock management, both to the farmers of today and to the public.
Are YOU in the MOO-d to donate? We need your help...
If you would like to help us reach our Cow Appeal target, please make a donation - large or small...There are 3 ways to donate to the Cow Appeal:
1. Donate Online - please click the button to the right, to make a secure donation through our Charity Choice webpage (all online donations will go straight to our Cow Appeal).
2. Donate by Text - to donate £1, £2, £3, £4, £5 or £10 using your mobile phone, please text COWS21 then leave a space and enter the amount you wish to donate, ie: COWS21 £5 and send to 70070. Your text will simply cost the price of a regular text from your phone, plus of course the value of your donation. All of the money you donate will come to our Cow Appeal in full, with no additional charges.
3. Donate by Cheque - please post cheques payable to Nottinghamshire Wildlife Trust, to: COW APPEAL, The Old Ragged School, Brook St, Nottingham. NG1 1EA.
Thank You
Cow Appeal Map
Click on the cows on the map of Nottinghamshire below, to find out more about the places we will graze our cows to help preserve and restore traditional wildflower meadows.
Latest Cow Appeal News
Cow Appeal cycle missions begin
Wednesday 4th April 2012
Time to get a moo-ve on and donate as Notts Cow Appeal cycle missions get underway.
L’Oreal’s luxury cow
Thursday 15th March 2012
We are pleased to announce a generous donation from L’Oreal Luxe, which will enable us to purchase another cow to join our ever growing herd of cows - part of our ambitious Cow Appeal project!
Moo-mentous start to Cow Appeal
Thursday 15th March 2012
Our Cow Appeal is well on its way to reaching the target of £25,000 in the next 2 years, aiming to purchase a herd of rare breed cattle to graze grassland areas along the Trent Vale.
Local Writer supports Cow Appeal
Thursday 15th March 2012
Local writer, William Ivory, supports the ‘Cow Appeal’!
New Video: 1 cow, 1 man, 1 bike, 1 mission
Wednesday 4th January 2012
When was the last time you cycled over 300 miles, with a tent strapped to your back, on your own for days?
Well local man Geoff Hickman is kindly planning to raise funds for our new Cow Appeal, by doing just that!
Olympic Storyteller’s cycle for Cow Appeal
Wednesday 1st February 2012
This is Jonathan Cross. He is one of 100 official Olympic Storytellers for the 2012 Games. He is also a man who likes to cycle. This April, Jonathan is taking up the challenge of a 250 mile cycle ride, from his home in Bridgford (NG2) to Bovey (Devon) - all in aid of our Cow Appeal!
Cow Appeal photos from Flickr
Related Video
The Cow Appeal
Your county needs Moo! This little film explores one fundraisers efforts (Geoff Hickman) to aid the Nottinghamshire Wildlife Trusts Cow Appeal. We had fun on a very cold day at Wollaton Hall & Attenborough Nature Reserve filming this. Below is an extract from the wildlife trust website:
“Over the next two years, we want to raise £25,000 to purchase our own herd of rare breed cattle, which we will used…
