I asked an old classmate how his farming endeavours were going during the week. After his degree, he’d taken the reins on the home dairy farm.

“Struggling to keep the ball in the air,” he replied.

My inner Aristotle thought it an apt metaphor for the typical Irish farm. I imagined dad, my brother and I over in the yard clumsily playing keepie-uppies in our wellies. Luckily, there are three of us here to keep the ball in the air. During the week, there is seldom more than one man charged with maintaining the farm at any one time. Naturally, big jobs like a worm dose or a pregnancy scan happen at the weekends. Our animals seem to have gotten in on the part-time act too, though I’m unsure whether to laugh or cry.

Bloated calf

On Friday evening, dad was keeping the ball in the air when a beach ball caught his eye. A bull calf had ballooned up to double his size and was visually straining. Of the few incidences of bloat that I had seen, this was the most pronounced. Any worse and he would have floated over the hedge.

I bit my tongue as mam searched for her washing-up liquid later that night. Along with it, we’d tried paraffin and a stomach tube. The following morning, there had been no improvement and our vet landed to take a look. He decided that the calf needed a permanent blow-hole. The bacterial population in his stomach was producing more gas than it should’ve been.

A small hole in his side would alleviate the pressure. I was on tail-twisting duty for the procedure, which took place in the calving shed. That same day, a team of tree surgeons were on duty in the yard, taking down a pair of towering beech trees that had partially rotted. Falling trees and buildings don’t mix. The drone from the saws was deafening and drowned out the vet’s warning as he prepared to release the gas.

In farming, you sniff some pretty noxious odours, but what was expelled from our Limousin friend was a game-changer. Some smells can’t be un-smelt. The dog u-turned and retreated with a whimper when we arrived back at the house.

Within a minute of rejoining his mother, the calf was suckling. One week later and there have been no issues.

Two trees down and a deflated calf, but we weren’t finished yet – more keepie-uppies to do.

Pneumonia: the vaccination dilemma

On Sunday morning, we went to move cows and calves to fresh grass and found that one of the young BB bulls was blowing hard. The thermometer read 40°C and the vets were called again. Hot days and frosty nights were blamed and vaccinating was recommended.

It’s something we haven’t done in five years. Should pneumonia be an issue in a closed herd? It’s a head-scratcher. When we last injected, two animals suffered from cases of the very strains they were immunised against. Since we stopped vaccinating, there have been a couple of mid-winter spontaneous cases, but no major problems.

A case at grass is worrying and provides us with plenty to ponder. Potential stressors will multiply indoors.

Vaccinations could be that extra bit of air that keeps the ball from hitting the ground later in the winter.

Is extra air always a good thing?