Who would begrudge a man a couple of pints on a Sunday evening after an exhausting, extra-time cup win with the football team? Mother Nature, of course.

After arriving home from the local watering hole, I made an immediate beeline for my much-needed bed. But I was stopped in my tracks by dad, who’d been examining the calving-camera feeds closely.

“We’ve got two legs here!”

Fantastic...

He’d later inform me that the newborn looked steadier on her legs than I did, though I think that’s an exaggeration. We watched her for a quarter of an hour; me, with a coffee in hand. Things seemed to have slowed, although the cow was visually uncomfortable.

The night was growing older; enough was enough.

Twenty minutes later I was tucked up in bed. After an easy pull, a fine LGL-bred heifer entered the world, nine days ahead of schedule. The next morning I found her up and drinking; a sight for sore eyes indeed. The cow was cleaned too. Nothing has happened in the maternal ward since. No doubt things will get more exciting this week.

Male and female weanlings

The farm has grown 7 kg DM per day since last week. Not too shabby considering the fertilizer spreader has yet to be roused from hibernation. The heifer weanlings have been further restricted in terms of concentrate supplementation – they are now receiving shy of a kilo along with silage to appetite.

Their male counterparts are steaming in the opposite direction. They’re eating roughly 6kg of concentrate per day and will make the switch onto a maize meal or rolled barley-based concentrate soon.

Shape and frame are creeping in. They’re visibly beginning to kick on.

In terms of turning out, there isn’t a huge rush. The heifer weanlings are obviously the priority stock but the yard is still bursting with silage.

Ideally we will bring in some foreign stock to utilise the surplus grass instead of conserving so much fodder.

But, the closed mentality is here to stay. While there is no doubt that we can afford to increase numbers, the temptation to breed some of the more terminal heifers must be avoided. They would bring with them their own problems; namely dystocia and a lack of milk.

Like many holdings, we’re a work in progress.