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I signed up for the amateur drama festival circuit again this year so I spent last week travelling to Ballyduff, Gorey, Castleisland and Doonbeg and back home every night.
The cows were extremely obliging. They held off calving until about half six Saturday evening and 12 hours later there were four more off the list. All calved unassisted. I might be mad for taking on such a demanding hobby at the busiest time of year, but I have good cover and there is much more to life than the farm. The real work is done from September through to now, and it’s great to have a reason to get out of the house.
Rainfall disrupted the grazing plan, with the heifers who were out having to be pulled back in. They had gone through a bit more ground than I had budgeted for, so the plan has been adapted. They will now stay in for a small bit longer and I will train the breeding heifers into on-off grazing during the week.
If I could take a few positives from the recent heavy rain, it’s that it mainly fell at night and hopefully bad weather is out of the way for a few weeks.
A group of calved cows have managed to get out for two or three hours every day since 21 February. It shows the contrast from 2016, where cows were out full time by then, but weather and calving patterns are different since then.
It’s fantastic training for the group who are mainly heifers. They walk out the door when its open and come back in from the field when they are called.
Selecting for docility is paying off too, with heifers nice and relaxed at calving and much more placid to deal with. I wish I had put more of an effort into breeding out trouble sooner. Maybe it’s something you just don’t realise until you experience both sides. It’s similar to old calving seasons when the jack and ropes accompanied the majority of calvings. Thankfully, this is no longer the case.
Speaking of calving jacks, the one calf who had a tough pull two weeks ago died a week later. He was so different to every other calf – even C-section calves have a bit of get up and go as the calving is less of a strain on them.
This one was slower to get up and slower to suck and took a lot more time compared with his comrades.
Farming was put in perspective when I got a call from dad to say Leo Meade had passed on.
Leo was heavily involved in the farm apprentice board and dad was one of those who completed their formal training on his dairy and pig farm.
Another neighbour from home, Sean Dineen, had passed away three weeks earlier. Neighbours play a vital role in farming, something that corporate agriculture sometimes forgets. When the going gets tough, family and neighbours are who you turn to.
Both were pillars in the village of Ballinascarthy, a community that has lost two of its biggest personalities within a short period of time.
My father’s pig unit is on ground he bought from Leo and is surrounded by ground owned by both men.
There was hardly a day went by in my early childhood where if you didn’t meet both of them you met at least one. They were very supportive as neighbours to my parents as they started out farming and had been ever since.
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