FARMER FOCUS: Calving is in full swing

That’s the last time I mention I have time on my hands. My last article about things being easier on the farm has come back to bite me on the bottom.

Since then I have had my brother’s stag party and the Young Farmers County Rally. Coming up, I have the Young Farmers Country Fayre, my girlfriend’s birthday, my dad’s birthday and my brother’s wedding.

Then it’s the AGM and the dinner and dance time again. In among all of that there’s about 150 cows and heifers to calve down and subsequent calves to rear, and a farm audit to complete.

On the farm calving is going well. With more than 40 animals calved so far there have been few problems. Calving the cows outside is working well and the calves are in good health too. By chance we’ve been feeding our dry cows during the afternoon. I once heard that doing this delays calving until the next day, thus calving during the daylight hours.

Sure enough all bar one have calved during the day, which has meant we have been able to keep on top of which calf belongs to which cow, and any problems that might have arisen during calving.

With so many calves on the ground, Dad and our calf rearer (Mum) have been heard grumbling that block calving is a lovely idea on paper. In reality, there isn’t anything that can really prepare you for having so many appear at once.

We managed to sell some beef calves at about a week old, which helped ease the burden. Hannah and I have shown off our creative side and made a milk bar from an old 25 litre barrel. With about a dozen of these littering the yard, feeding these calves shouldn’t be a problem now.

I can’t hang around though. There’s more calves to move into hutches, maize to inspect, a turnip fence to move and I need to put some bales out for the fresh calvers as well. These were mostly expertly baled and wrapped by our baler man, Mike. These are only teething problems though and the girls are happily munching all of it – as witnessed by the empty feed troughs.

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