A friend recently asked me “Where does our milk come from in winter if most of the cows in the country are dry?” so I thought I’d use it as a starting point to explain a few things about dairy farming. Cows supply milk for ten months of the year, with their supply being greatest in the months after calving. The majority of dairy farmers have a ‘dry’ period where they don’t milk for [...]
Mary, Mary, Quite Contrary, is the reason this Hereford-Friesian calf is called Mary. Yet, by the end of her third day of life I had to admit there was definitely something about Mary. She was a tad infuriating for the first couple of days of her life although, being so young, it’s not like there was any point getting cross with her.
We had Hereford calves last spring for the first time in decades and they all took to food like [...]
Cows aren’t natural ballerinas or gymnasts. You probably knew that already. They can run fairly quickly if they want to but aren’t that dexterous. That creates problems if a cow decides to go for a dance or inadvertently slips and falls. If they fall, they are usually fine, just like a child gets up and walks on, they do the same. However, the odd one will ‘do the splits’ and go down. If they go down and can’t get up [...]
Do you ever notice that things seem to happen in threes? Be it good or bad, it seems that we either seem to get three bad events in a row or three good events. Now, how would you classify these three things that happened within the same hour on Saturday?
I spent Saturday morning finishing off the accounts for the accountant and then got stuck into some housework. The phone rang at 12:55 just as I was planning to have a [...]
Getting away on holiday when you’re a farming family can be easier said than done, getting a farmer away on holiday isn’t just a case of booking time off and deciding where in the world you will go. There’s lots of obstacles not to mention excuses and yes, sometimes it seems farmers seem to be making them up on purpose! Examples will include:
