raining calves

Well the rain arrived on Thursday night, in fierce bursts leaving us in a warm murky pool of humidity. Not enough rain yet, Jethro says, to do good and it fell so fast and so hard yesterday morning that it ran off the land and along the roads and is now filling up the pond. At least from the kitchen window the vegetable garden gives the impression of being damp at last and perhaps the onions planted two weeks ago will start to grow?

It is not just rain that is falling fast – new calves are arriving almost daily. So far without too much trouble [fingers crossed], one heifer [a young cow, calving for the first time] needed help, last week, late at night in the dark. The calf was almost out and swinging from her rear end with his hips held fast at the narrowest point of the heifer’s pelvis. A good pull and the bull calf was out, safe and sound. It is unusual for a calf to get stuck at this point because a calf’s head and shoulders are usually the widest and most difficult part to push through the birth passage but because we were there all was well and neither calf nor heifer were distressed. .

Cows are totally occupying our minds just now. With Open Farm Sunday coming up we are working on our displays and activities. We are building two model cows in order that anyone, but particularly the children, may try their hand at milking. There is however one problem the instructions have no measurements and no one here has any artistic talents. We are getting there by degrees, enlarging this cow piece by piece.. but hope that FACE may come up with the actual measurements soon. It does not even say how tall to make the beast! I am sure it will all be fine, in the end, but we all do wish at times at least one of us had the ability to pick up a pen and draw a cow or a sheep or a pig…

rain stopped weigh in

I am able to update the blog now as we were literally just about to go out to weigh the cattle from the sheds and administer their bluetongue vaccine booster but the heavens have opened in a  sudden deluge and instead I find I have a few spare minutes to quickly tap the keys before starting another large task. It is very cold, and very wet and I think I am now not sorry to be stuck indoors.

The 400 acres of drilled spring corn and our first row of early potatoes in the garden will benefit from the rain. Unfortunately we had not quite finished rolling all the arable seed beds after drilling, but as we have had a run of almost perfect weather there are few complaints. Within five minutes of the squall arriving the tractor drivers have phoned in to say they are now returning to the yard.

Our first suckler calf of the season, a heifer, was born on Saturday and is doing well, although her mother is currently not in the greatest shape and is under the care of the vet. This particular cow had lost condition and has had blood tests to try to work out what is wrong when she is eating well and well in herself but she is lacking in condition. We knew she isn’t ill, as such, as she gave the vet and I such a run around in the yard on Thursday when he came out to examine her. Eventually, after several attempts of nearly getting her to the gate [even with food] only to have her return to the far end of the yard we had to let out Ruby the pet cow out in order to get them both up the race and into the cattle crush.

Persuading Ruby back into her byre after the patient was safely penned was slightly perilous too. It is Ruby’s  first time out of the byre this winter and in the warm sunshine she was very frisky. I waved a bucket with food in the bottom from the end of the yard and she is so greedy that she galloped up the concrete, flat out, kicking her heels out to one side as she ran. I stopped her quite easily but then rather lost my nerve to continue with persuading her to go back to bed as her byre was still some distance away and she was desperate to get at the food even if it meant barging into me. I handed the bucket to Jethro [who had just arrived] and he grasped it, rather like the baton in a relay race, and sped down the yard with his naughty red heifer galloping flat out after him…

freezing rain

A day of freezing rain and yet more ice. The yard was bad again  this morning but by lunchtime thawed back to large puddles. the two young litters of 20 piglets are doing well now. The first lot, born last Monday are starting to play and root about the stable and have totally sussed that the best place to be when they have had a suckle is back under the heat lamp. Their mother insists on collecting every bit of bedding she can and adding it to her ‘nest’, even though we try to cover the cold floor for the babies to prevent a chill.  However I think this litter can now manage with some bare floor as they know a) where the milk is and b) where the warmth is.

The youngest litter, born yesterday, are also making good progress. Surprisingly, they are much heavier and bigger than the first litter and they are beginning to grasp that under the heat lamp is a good place to be. Every time we feed the mother or are passing by the stable and they seem full and content we lift them and put them under the lamp ( some do squeal loudly). The other litter learnt to go under the lamp within a day, this group is taking slightly longer but some of them are just starting to go back under the lamp by choice now. Their mother is not at all bothered about making a nest which is just as well as the straw covered floor in her stable will protect them overnight until they willingly go under the lamp.

Traditional rare breed pigs are what we keep here, and our methods are very pig friendly and not at all intensive.

In the big cattle sheds beside the house the calves are quietening down, we have had some noisy nights as they call for their mothers. There is a bit of bullying in the cattle yards too, so we will have to move some cattle around to counter this although to a certain extent the animals have to sort out who is top dog, or should I say cow ( except the cows are actually out in the field).

the naughty cow

 This is Ruby saying “hello”.

 She is Jethro’s pet heifer, due to calve in the New Year, and be milked for the house.

Ruby will do almost anything in return a scratch on the right part of her anatomy [just above her tail] and if she doesn’t get what she wants can be very naughty and give a little reminder with her horns. She follows Jethro around the field like a dog and they talk to each other every day.

you know you are a dairy farmer if….

Here’s something to hopefully lighten the mood as the dire weather continues and the ordeal of harvest 2008 grinds on. 

I have no idea of the origins of this anonymous funny, it came from the USA courtesy of electronic media, which is so much faster than pigeon post or stage coach that at times I struggle to keep up.

 Adapted for this country it reads…

Dairy farmer definitions:

YOU KNOW YOU ARE A DAIRY FARMER IF:

 

1.Your backyard ends with an electric fence.
2. The children’s drinking glasses are milk replacer cups.
3. Muck is a meal time topic.
4. You know the price of milk per litre but not by the pint.
5. The sand pit for your children is an old tractor tyre.
6. You have three pairs of Nora boots and two pairs all go to the same foot.
7. The medicine cabinet in your house contains a container of udder balm.
8. You’ve ever received an award for fat, and were proud of it. (butterfat)
9. Your idea of a power lunch is a sandwich on a tractor.
10. Your idea of carpentry includes a chainsaw and bent nails.
11. Fence repairs are second nature.
12. You can fix anything with baler twine, a piece of wire, duct tape and a pair of mole grips.
13. Your idea of neighbourhood watch is someone calling you to let you know your heifers are out.
14. The back door on your house has the key in it all the time so it doesn’t get lost.

15. Your idea of public transport is moving your cows along the road, or to a holding pen or field.
16. Most of your good headgear advertises semen or seeds.
17. You have more than a dozen cats.
18. You have more pictures of your cows than of your children.
19. Your idea of overnight delivery is calving a cow at three in the morning.
20. You can remember the name of every cow on the farm but the names of your children elude you.. 

Although Prosperous Farm is not a dairy farm there are cattle, sheep and pigs as well as the crops, and more sentences from the list apply than I’d like to readily admit! Today, bright with a drying wind first thing, now at 10 am ominously cloudy and grey. The day to day servicing of the machinery continues ready for the off again at a moments notice.

Hey ho, whovever said farming was easy?