Silage and Scones

The weather has been incredibly hot here in Ireland – no rain for 16 days is almost unheard of. Farmers on dry land (who have been the envy of the rest of us for many years) are finding that what grass they had is just burning off and most are feeding the first cut of silage (which shouldn’t have been touched until next winter) and meal to cows and perhaps silage or hay to the rest of the stock. ?The [...]

Mind That First Bull, He’s Rowdy!

Irish Dairy CowIt was our annual tuberculosis test today and everything went along swimmingly thank goodness as it is a real pain if there is even one animal is ‘doubtful’. If a single animal is found to have TB, your herd is ‘locked up’ which means a farmer can’t sell animals to another farmer during a defined [...]

How Safe Is The Food We Eat?

When tweeting as @Tweetingfarmers for a week, I was asked a question that surprised me – ‘What is the possibility of antibiotics being in the milk we drink?’ It surprised me because the person who asked is very aware of food safety and I wondered if people are reading stories in the papers of unregulated horsemeat in burgers and antibiotics in beef in non-EU countries and wondering if it really is like this in Ireland. Although farmers get the CAP [...]