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I don’t think I can blame the lack of blogging just on the shortening days but I wish I could! The clocks change this w/e and I wish we could stay on BST rather than switching to GMT as we much prefer it. We would rather have darker mornings and lighter evenings, but I know there are huge debates about this issue every year.
It is just so very busy with the autumn arable drilling thankfully finished today, and now the livestock work is upon us with a vengeance. Perhaps, methinks, this is why mixed farming became unfashionable, because with such a spread of enterprises on the farm there is never ever a respite?
It is not just the routine of daily feeding and checking of pigs, sheep and cattle, but the annual tasks of sorting the ewes into their groups to meet with the rams. And the time of the year when the vet comes to castrate the bull calves, time also to vaccinate the cattle against respiratory viruses, and then after 2 weeks following the vaccine, time to bring the younger cattle in for the winter.
We must be mad, as well as this heavy workload, and the meat sales, we have 5 educational visits in the next month for primary school children, teenagers, and one half day visit which encompasses all ages.
Thankfully, the puppy is not here at the moment, education is vitally important to all of us and since the actual owner of the dog is away studying for a degree in Agriculture at a top University, we thought a bit of proper education for the dog would be useful too. Both students are doing very well, especially the dog, who should be back home next month wagging her tail, walking to heel and always coming back when called! Training a 9 month old puppy was just too much on top of everything else for yours truly to consider.
Every generation in this household has now either been trained in agriculture and/or land use or is in training. This fact actually makes us quite rare nowadays, and clearly shows that we are also quite, quite mad. However farming clearly runs in the blood [probably no choice with a name like Tull] and cannot be ignored, despite various members of the family trying to do other things along life’s winding journey.
There is more training to be done here too, that of the horse…. Swift arrived 10 days ago, and is being looked after by us. He is a young gelding, who hustled the mares too much in his previous home, and was a quick sale. I happened upon him by chance and was first in. He was not expensive but came without a vetting, as a gamble. His teeth have been sorted, they were really bad, his overgrown molars had lacerated the inside of his cheeks on both sides. The vet sedated him while the horse dentist worked. His back has been found to be tender and tight and is now being sorted by professionals, using chiropractic methods and Equine Touch amongst other things which I will tell you more about about another time. I was not expecting this, but I am sure he will be fine.
Swift has a very sweet nature and in a few days learnt to cope with the house cow [ he is now THE boss of a very bossy cow], some of the sheep and the pigs in the yard, oh and he has had his first encounter here with pheasants too. All these are vitally important attributes for a farm horse. On Sunday we walked slowly around to inspect all the large machinery in a quiet and deserted yard.
I am in no hurry with him and will take as long as it takes to get him used to what we expect and hope for. If his back needs a rest then he will learn his way around the farm from the end of a lead rope. If I need extra help with his schooling I have friends who will be able to help me. It is extremely therapeutic for me to escape the ringing of the phone and almost never ending streams of emails that pour into the farm office, for an hour every so often.
I may not be quite so thrilled when it starts to rain and never stops. We have had so little rain we are worried about having enough grass to last the stock through the winter and with the number of acres we have and the low stocking rate that should never be a problem, but this year unusually it is.
Our pig saga continues. Having replaced our very rare boar that perhaps had not done as he should with an older, proven close relative of his [his Uncle], we now discover that perhaps he had actually been alright after all.
A few more weeks should hopefully produce the evidence we desperately need. In the meantime his immediate death sentence has been lifted and he is now amusing himself in the empty cattle shed digging for tasty treats of old barley that had fallen behind the troughs where the cattle couldn’t reach.
The cattle were turned out this week too and we had a major rodeo as we let over fifty cattle out on to the lush spring grass. Every year is reassuringly the same – the cattle trumpet their joy at being let out as they run down the road kicking their heels in the air. It never fails to lifts one’s heart especially as the task of feeding them twice daily with home grown cereals and homegrown hay or silage is lifted. One old farmer friend used to state: ” The day of bondage is ended for another year”, until November when it all starts again with the next batch of calves to be weaned.
While examining the sows who are very quiet and really quite tame for pigs I made the terrible mistake of stepping over one very friendly girl to try to read her ear tattoo. I had one leg on each side of this chattering supine pig [who always chunters away as if she is having a full conversation] this proved to be a major error. Even with my glasses on I struggled to read the number and she got a bit fed up with me turning her ear inside out and peering at her. So she stood up. As a full grown sow this meant I was now completely astride the pig, with no way for my feet to reach the ground. “Uh oh” I thought “this could be painful”.. and with my hands I pushed down on her back to try to ease myself off her. This extra pressure to her to her meant “go” and she shot off across the orchard to join her friends with me on her back. “What are you doing?” came the cry from across the pens.. “Trying to get off” said I. Shock turned to laughter, both from those on the ground and from me on top of the pig, which made it worse as I couldn’t laugh and get off at the same time.
The sow decided she’d had enough - and gave a sharp turn to the left and humped her back firmly depositing me onto my knees on the hard ground. My pride took the greatest fall, although more than a week on I still bear the bruises, and I definitely won’t being doing that again..
The sun is still shining and the grass is growing well while all the time the tractors are still rolling on the arable land.
The growth of the new grass is much easier to measure on the other side of the fence as it is nibbled immediately within the field boundaries. The ram lambs still come for their daily feed home grown barley but are less keen for it which is a sure sign of the coming of the spring grass.
The stock work is piling up with vaccinations due, cattle still to be weighed and all manner of sheep to be moved to fresh grazing on previous set aside to give the sheep a natural nutritional boost while at the same time home resting the home pastures before lambing.
There are just not enough hours in the day or enough manpower available at the same time to get through all the urgent tasks at the exact time they need to be done. The pressure we are all feeling, from the arable and livestock sides of the business, is so typical of mixed farming systems in the spring and autumn. After all these years we ought to be either hardened to it or have come up with a better plan but we haven’t yet and everything usually works out fine in the end.
The boar appears much better and will now be used on 3 of our girls.
In the meantime we plough on with the computerising of the accounts and the planning for various access visits including Open Farm Sunday on 7th June, and various other educational access visits.
The cattle can clearly smell the grass growing and know spring is almost here. This morning they are running about in their open sided sheds kicking their heels in the bright, warm sunshine. Tomorrow we will weigh them and calculate their daily liveweight gain over the winter and for the oldest beef animals estimate their time of dispatch. Our wonderfully patient beef customers are getting a little restless and I promised them an update on when their beef boxes will be ready.
In the meantime I have just weighed and selected another eight lambs to send this week and this afternoon we will be checking on the progress of the fattening pigs, however I am sure they will be a few weeks off yet. Our fattening lambs are almost gone for another year and come mid April we will be delivering the new crop.
Progress on the arable front is good too with the drilling almost done and the fertiliser application on the wheat making good progress.
In the meantime the hired boar has arrived and is firmly in quarantine. This is not our first experience of hiring boars and we are frequently dismayed to find that some rare breed pigs are apparently kept in indifferent conditions. We are not sure he is even fit for the purpose he came for. Personally this morning I think he still looks poor, and we are debating whether to even try him or just send him back. He was dosed with Dectomax, an anti parasite injection, before we even took him off the trailer as he has arrived with what looks to us rather like both mange and worms, still his appetite is good and that is always a good thing with pigs. Pigs who are not eating is usually a sign of something terminal. Keeping these rare breeds going is not at all easy but we are determined to get it right and make a really good job of it, I just wish every other rare breed pig keeper tried to do the same.
In the meantime we’ve found a boar of the same line as our sterile one and can fetch him very soon. This will be good because we really prefer to have a closed herd, which makes us much less vulnerable to outbreaks of parasites and disease. It also means we are totally responsible for the pigs’ management and we prefer to do that too.
I have bad news and good news: First the bad news – I clearly spoke too soon on the drilling front as the very clever little box of ’chips’ which calculates the correct seed rate has gone on the blink and is causing MAJOR problems for Jethro. The original seed drill was so much simpler.
Now the good news is I just walked past the hired boar’s box and he is shouting for his tea already.
More snow fell last night, followed by rain and sleet however our troubles here are nothing compared with those who live in Australia, especially in the State of Victoria and are coping with these terrible bush fires. How they would welcome a dose of the cold wet stuff, and that puts everything in perspective for us.
We are in now uncharted territory as the combination of rain and melting snow on previously saturated ground is a new one. We watch almost hour by hour as the pond levels rise and the fields start to flood.
The problem with the overflowing pond is that it can overflow through the Victorian buildings to fill the yard and we have no where else to move the housed cattle to.
warm and dry for now
All the melt water from the village runs down the road and into the pond, on top of all our own ‘run off’ from the surrounding fields and yards.
Frost is forecast later tonight, perhaps it will slow the rapid thaw but the problem is that the roads are running with water so they will probably be like glass tomorow and we know the County Council is short of grit and no longer bothers to salt the rural byways.
It took an hour to get to the local railway station 5 miles away this morning.
Spring seems a long way away but would be very welcome right now.
land or sea?
This was a field last time we looked.
The deep and crisp snow shows no sign of going and the animals must be feeling hungrier as they now rush up to the tractor for their hay every day. The sheep are clearly not as stupid as many people seem to think either, they pick the hay over, eating what they want, and then lie on the remainder, chewing their cud contentedly, as a way of protecting themselves from the hard frosted crust of snow.
Mollie seems fine, albeit in our human eyes perhaps a little more fed fed up than usual. Hay 3 times a day is what she gets as the rams she lives with make ‘feather’ beds out of most of it. By giving her a chance of hay 3 times a day she has first pick of the forage before the rams, she is totally the boss of them. Woe betide the boys if they dare try to take a mouthful from her pile before she has had enough. Her ears go flat back and her teeth are bared and her hind feet do a quick jig, the rams have learnt this is not a good sign and immediately back off. We do however set out a lot of separate piles of hay so they can feed at the same time. Mollie moves the rams along from pile to pile, with one sour look, while picking out the choicest strands of homemade hay for herself.
The snow is so deep and hard that even she has taken to walking in the vehicle tracks and only very occasionally trotting instead of her usual top speed around the field. I have just cleared all the icicles from her fetlocks and given her an extra feed of soaked sugar beet with a chaff mix. Her very expensive rug [nb: for rug, read 'duvet'] is keeping her toasty warm from her ears to her tail and although many horses have been brought inside during the snow she still prefers to be out and it is what she is used to. Even fetching her in, at present, would be nigh on impossible as we have sheet ice for several hundred yards from the field gate to the stable yard where the farm machines travel daily. I thought the Rhino rug was a huge expense when I rushed out and bought it the day she arrived but owing to this winter’s colder weather it has turned out to be absolutely invaluable.
For us people the ‘going’ is harder too, but the work out our muscles get is fantastic. Fit flops are increasingly popular and good for all sorts of toning and orthapaedic quirks [my arthritic knees improved no end by wearing them in the summer] but I can vouch for the fact that walking through this deep crisp snow, day after day, is most excellent for toning too. However our appetites for warm and comforting food are also increased!
We have managed to buy some extra hay, 550 small bales which will be very useful for the cattle and the sheep. Forage requirements [hay and silage] after many mild winters, like tons of road grit, are hard to predict and we need a lot more this year to keep the animals satisfied. The bought in hay should last us an extra 50 days for the cattle, we will use our existing big bale hay for the sheep.
Ruby has finally calved, well to be exact we have just calved her as after a disturbed night she presented us with one hind foot at 8am. I could see a hoof sticking out from the birth passage and had just broken the membrane so that if the calf came naturally it would not drown in constraints of the birth sack. Once the sack was popped I could see immediately that it was a hind leg which signals DANGER to both the heifer and calf.
However breech births are fairly common in cattle and sheep and fairly routine to deal with. As Jethro’s pet cow [she was hand reared before we got her] she is a easier to handle than say a heifer from our big herd out in the fields.
Anyway Jethro located the other hind leg and pulled it out until we had two hind legs presenting and the hips would be next to deliver. Then it was matter of easing the calf out gently, as Ruby pushed with each contraction, Jethro and one of the men kept an even pressure on the calf by gently pulling on the legs so that in between contractions the calf eases forwards inch by inch.
In this situation it is vitally important to be as speedy as possible, while taking every care not to damage the cow’s birth passage and pelvis, because calves and lambs in the breech position often take in amniotic fluid through their mouths and noses on their journey out of the uterus.
The deep red calf was delivered safely and then had to be hung up by his hind legs to clear all the gunk from its mouth and nose. This took some considerable time, and all the time the calf was being rubbed and its heart massaged. I gave the calf a couple of rescue breaths too and the colour of the mucous membranes reamined good and the eye reflex was also good. Sometimes calves or lambs born via breech births never breath.
When we thought we had held the calf upside down for long enough we laid it down and Ruby joined with the resucitation with her tongue. Little by little the calf started to come around and take the occasional breath. Only at this point did we think to look to see what gender the calf was, it was a boy.
I’d really have liked a heifer to breed from however this will provide us with plenty of meat in 30 months time. He sounds rather like an old man with pneumonia with a deep throaty rattle and cough but we will monitor him carefully and once he is up on his feet it will ease his chest.
The calf is deep red like his mother, and the white snow continues to fall, heavily. For yet another day all our earlier tracks have been obliterated and the feeding of extra rations in the fields goes on.
The snow fall levelled out at tea time yesterday at around 8 inches. We cleared the snow off the old Victorian conservatory roof just before dark in case more snow fell and the glass cracked from the strain. The roof may be covered by insurance but we simply couldn’t cope with any more house related problems. [We also had a burst radiator 2 weeks ago which nearly brought down the farm office ceiling.] On Sunday, Jethro planted some early potatoes in a barrel in the conservatory, but in truth that feels a wee bit optimistic right now.
Today everywhere is frozen hard again and the battle to feed and water all the outdoor stock continues. Since the last cold snap we have plumbed in and filled two 2250 litre troughs for the cattle, so keeping them watered will be easier even if the frost continues and we have to resume leading water out in the bowser. The outdoor pigs have had their rations increased slightly but with their warm straw filled wooden arks they seem absolutely fine. The 2o weaned piglets chase each other around in the deep snow and are not taking any hurt at all, which is marvellous.
I have finally found my camera charger [as always with 'lost' possessions it was found when I was not actually looking for it] and now I need to find or replace the lead to connect it to the computer so albeit slowly I am making progress towards illustrating this blog.
One Good Thing about yesterday’s ’snow day’ was that my desk and filing were finally cleared of piles of papers and a lot of outstanding admin dealt with. If only I could keep on top of it on a regular basis it would be so much easier however farm life and the frequent ‘ emergency situations’ that arise on an ever increasing basis seem to make this type of routine hard to keep up, however I will keep trying. Paper simply seems to multiply when I am not looking, [does anyone else have this problem?] although I discovered that Jethro has a horrid habit of just adding to the pile of papers on MY desk [while clearing his desk] which he thinks are my responsiblity. I have now positioned a special blue tray and specifically asked him to put all papers in their that he wishes me to deal with and I also have a very smart filing tray with 4 sections marked urgent, farm, house/housekeeping etc. I really hope it will work and I can do better, it was a wish of mine for 2009 to take better control of all this paper. There is still an hour’s worth of filing today to do on pig paperwork alone.
Mollie seems fine, the hay rations for her and the three rams she lives with have been increased, but until the thaw there is no chance of riding or anything else. Roll on spring.
Today, if it is not cancelled, we are attending a
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Hazard Analysis of Critical Control Points (HACCP)
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training course for farmers which is designed to cover the aspects of ‘farm to fork’, and will no doubt result in even wider knowledge on the legal aspects of what we do and how we do it and of course another certificate to put on the wall.
Just a few words tonight, all the animals seem to be improving, or at least in the case of the cattle not getting any worse. The pigs are fine and the 20 piglets are really starting to thrive. The ram’s foot is probably the least improved of all the ailments but we re-poulticed it and gave him some more AB.
It is the very long ‘paper trail’ that is taking up so much time and effort as Jethro inputs every ear number, batch number, withdrawal date etc, etc for every animal and every medicine we have used. He is tired, and he has worked late in the office every night for months. It seems at the moment that this is perhaps not the best way to live.
Hey ho!
Thank you very much for all the comments on yesterday’s post. It was a long innings with the vet and totally dark by the time we finished, we were down to torch light for the last few tasks. We had various prognoses (is that how I spell the plural?) with a variety of species.
One of the medium sized steers, aged about 17 months, is a very poor doer and failing to thrive, we think it is unlikely to get better but we are giving a course of AB just in case it is turns out to be something simple, although both we and the vet doubt it.
Some of the rest of the cattle, both of middle size and smaller, are afflicted with a high temperature and respiratory infection. The vet treated 3 yesterday and after a long trip by yours truly to get more meds, from the surgery this morning, we are going to treat the rest this afternoon. We have put the smaller cattle crush, to hold them firmly and safely while we examine each one, back in place in the yard and attached the weigh crate so we can weigh every animal and check their temperature and if necessary give the exact dose of medication. If they do not have a raised temperature we will just watch them carefully over the next few days. Every individual ear tag and every batch number and withdrawal date of each medicine will be recorded on the medicine data base.
The lame ram is now on different AB, and his granulated wound is poulticed, which is to be changed every 2 days. Again we and the vet do not know if he will recover but we are all prepared to try. We have other rams to use this year so will still have lambs but he is the only Dorset Down ram that we have and we wanted to know how this cross would work on our flock.
Just before the vet arrived I checked on the pigs and piglets. My nose reported me there was a potentially serious problem with the latest one to farrow and I did not have time to take her temperature as a check before the vat came. However, when we had finished all the cattle the vet checked her and owing to what happened last week and the fact that she did indeed have a raised temperature (although she was still eating well) she too is on a course of AB. Like her sister, from last week, though there was no obvious sign of metritis or mastitis.
In reply to a comment yesterday, we are not aware that any of our animals are resistant to AB, as we only use AB when we absolutely have to and unfortunately we do seem to suddenly have had more illness in the animals in the last 10 days than we have done for many years. Just the way it goes I guess and it probably won’t happen again as I mentioned yesterday no season is ever the same and I’d like to stress again that we are an extensively run system with a low stocking density and low inputs. The majority of our animals would never ever receive even a single dose of AB during their whole lives.
While I have been typing today’s entry the meat hygiene report has arrived electronically for the two pigs dispatched this morning. In the old days they were walked to market in the hope of a sale, nowadays we sell them in advance, before driving, by road, to the abattoir and most of the paperwork is done on-line through BPEX. The wonders of technology.
Makes me think though that all this blogging and IT is becoming almost second nature to a huge number of us now. The convenience and speed of it all helps the modern world, especially here as the majority of the farm orders from tractor parts and eartags to nails and fuel are now conducted on-line ( and at any time of day or night) saving so much ‘down time’ for Jethro.
On Sunday I watched a BBC programme called Survivors (I missed episode 2 though) and one of the characters pointed out that many people in the changed (fictional) world would be unable to manage on their own; could they kill a pig, milk a cow, grow food etc? The answer from here is of course yes we can and do or could do all of these things. But I still wonder if we can interest the next generation in really learning all of these things. The average age of farmers is still rising and has been for the last 10 years or more.
The vet is coming shortly. Some of the cattle in the shed are unwell and we need to make sure we sort out the problem before we have an epidemic of something like pneumonia.
It is quite normal when housing cattle of mixed ages to have something like this happen, it is rather like small children starting school, they meet a good mix of germs and different food and some of the batch are fine and some succumb.
Our cattle shed is open on all sides and is very airy, it is split done the middle with all the younger cattle on one side and the older ones on the other side. However, they can still meet and mingle noses (and therefore germs) across the water trough in the middle.
We also have a ram who has a serious and persistent abscess on his leg, despite a week of daily attention and antibiotic injections. He is a bought-in shearling ram ( 2 years old), supposedly in his prime, and should have been used on the ewes this month. This untimely abscess has now put paid to him working at all this season and we will see today if the vet thinks he can be sorted out and saved for working next year or whether his problem is just too severe. It is the first time in a lifetime of sheep farming that we have ever had such a problem, so the fact that we were told when growing up that every year (or season) is different really holds true.
Lastly, the vet will vaccinate the farm collie with her annual booster. We always try to tie this task in with a visit whenever we can as she is not at all well behaved in the surgery and this is much better for everyone, especially the dog.
Weeks ago Jethro booked in a steer to the slaughterhouse for this week. However, the animal has not yet gone, and now has a few more days of sunshine [at last] and grass with an early morning meal of home made cattle muesli.
Defra regulations state that cattle must have two tags in their ears at all times. A few days ago this steer had the required two tags, but perhaps luckily for him on Tuesday or Wednesday he lost one of them, the secondary tag.
Jethro ordered a replacement tag and has had to re-book the bullock into the abattoir for next week, and then re-arrange all the next stages of quality beef production. The beef hangs for a minimum of 26 days in a cold store before it is expertly cut, and sold.
Would the world have stopped if we had sent him with only one tag and his paper passport, possibly not, but we could not take the risk that he would be turned away and then have to endure two journeys in the trailer so we took the safest option and let him have a few more days with his friends.
Please click here for pictures of tags and passports, you may need to scroll down on this new page.
We fetched in a large group of heifers and one of the bulls from the field in to the yard this morning. The bull appeared to have a lump on one side of his face. Further investigation drew a complete blank. No apparent abscess or tooth trouble. This particular bull just has very hairy chops, so we turned them all out into the field again!
The DEFRA site now reports that 18 cattle imported into County Durham have tested POSITIVE for BLUETONGUE.
This has been allowed to happen before vaccination has taken place throughout the area and immunity built up in the North Eastern livestock.
Is there no common sense anywhere? In the farmers who should know better than to jeopardize this nation’s livestock or DEFRA for allowing importation into an area that was only allowed to vaccinate 10 days ago? It takes time for immunity to build up and cattle need two doses 21 – 28 days apart before this immunity begins to build [depending which vaccine is used].
I still believe that we are an Island and special care should be taken over importation.
Surely there is no single farming business so financially reliant on importing stock from a BT ridden zones that it is worth the risks to the entire industry?
I have said it before, this is a bluetongue mess, and complacency must not win. We have to unite, to vaccinate and not import from disease ridden areas.
Everyone has collective responsibility from the stakeholders, DEFRA, and each individual livestock farmer. Our livestock depend on us making the right decisions to keep them healthy and this includes not taking unnecessary risks such as importing without thinking through the consequences of such acts and the relevant policies.
NB: Bluetongue only affects livestock and does not affect people.
Added 9.20pm 11 Sept 08
For important information regarding import testing please read this ProMed commentary. More information can also be found at Warmwell.
Why does DEFRA think it is perfectly acceptable for thousands and thousands of cattle to be slaughtered following a diagnosis of bovine tuberculosis?
This news story from the Farmers Guardian makes shocking reading and needs shouting from the rooftops. And according to this report in Hansard, the predicted numbers of cattle to be slaughtered this year will be in excess of 40,000.
The disease is continuing to spread into new areas and another story clearly indicates that the veterinary profession believe that badgers are the main source of infection.
Do the bunny huggers hold such sway over the powers that be that infected badgers are worth more than all these cattle? Or does the public just not know about the thousands of cattle deaths?
The suffering of both the cattle, and the families who own these infected bovines cannot be underestimated and all need our sympathy and support.
Here are the latest figures. Surely this indiscriminate slaughter cannot go on.
Yesterday, we vaccinated seven calves against Bluetongue (BT) disease. This is the eighth time since May that Jethro has had to get the cattle in to vaccinate against this hideous disease. We were one of the first areas to be given the vaccine and owing to the fact that the cows calve steadily through the spring and summer months it has meant batching the calves and doing a few at a time, and then repeating 3 – 4 weeks later with the second booster dose on each calf. It is not an easy task, but one we take seriously and I wish that all the nation’s livestock keepers and policy makers were of the same mind.
The country is in a mess over the vaccinating programme, as devolved Scotland has decided so far not to vaccinate, despite the National Beef Association petition [please sign].
Wales and the north of England [ Cumbria and Northumberland ]are this month able to vaccinate and yet many individuals are dithering over whether to do so as they worry over potential trading difficulties with Scotland and other areas. However, in July, we were offered steers to buy from Lincolnshire and we turned them down as they were not vaccinated. The vendor was not bothered stating clearly that because others had vaccinated he did not need to. We have a lot of midges and whether there is BT around here or not*, we choose to vaccinate all our cattle and sheep, and we do not want to jeopardise our animals’ health and well-being by bringing in un-vaccinated ones. The new born calves get some immunity in the antibodies from the colostrum [first milk] until we are able to immunize them individually. [* DEFRA should do further testing across the country so we know if there is an underlying problem with BT infection or not. However the test must be able to discern the difference between either infection related antibodies or a stimulated response following vaccination. Clarification here]
Britain is a small country and to protect our livestock we need to be totally united, as we and all our livestock all reside TOGETHER on one island there should be one policy and devolution should be overruled.
