I’m tired. It’s not often that I’m really tired. It has been a busy couple of months: new calf shed being built, 130 calves born, and lots of finishing touches to Till the Cows Come Home which is being published in May. But it’s the relentlessly bad weather and all the extra work that goes with it that has made me tired. We knew the weather wouldn’t be great over Easter but the fact that it is continuing on for [...]
Multiple births in cows can have some disadvantages: they can lead to complications, it can be harder for the dam to go back in calf again and if the calves are of mixed gender, it is highly likely that the female is a freemartin which means she is infertile. This happens because the testosterone from the male calf in the womb renders the female infertile. It’s not always the case and we have had a mixed sex female twin heifer [...]
Sam is Brian’s dog. At eleven years of age, he’s retired now and works when he chooses to, when it’s a job he enjoys. Lou is mine. She is the first dog I’ve ever had who obeys me, who follows me around like a shadow, who is a good working dog. At this time of year, she accompanies me when I’m scraping and liming the cubicles, when I’m feeding calves, whatever I’m doing up the yard, and she gets me [...]
Updated Post 11 January 2021
We started using calf coats in 2017 as we were using large hutches (outside but in a sheltered part of the yard) to house some calves and I felt they needed coats for warmth. We put the coats on at birth and left them on till almost weaned. We now have a large and airy calf shed with two fans which is great for preventing diseases like pneumonia but not overly warm on cold nights. I [...]
Storm Emma and the “Beast from the East” met to create some chaos in Ireland this past week. While we got a lot of snow and were snowed in for a few days, we weren’t in the worst affected county. We didn’t have to put in that much preparation as all livestock were housed in any case. We moved any heavily pregnant cows into the maternity shed to reduce the risk of having to move them across an icy yard. We [...]
