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The straw shed has never been this empty so late in the year. One tillage farmer described the 2016 harvest as having one week’s worth of harvest taking seven weeks to complete.
At this stage, most farmers have got a quantity of straw but not as much as they require. The majority of straw baled in early October has been described as brittle and only of bedding quality. Those who feed straw will have to adapt. What concerns me is when I hear that farmers are going to get by with what they have and hope for an early spring. Hope isn’t much of a strategy and the fodder crisis of 2013 is still relatively recent.
Despite it being a difficult year financially, it may make more sense to buy in now rather than next spring when there is a possibility of another fodder shortage along the western seaboard.
Weaning is progressing nicely and at this stage only the heifers on the mature cows remain. I have been satisfied with weaning weights, especially as no meal was fed to calves at grass. I will go into detail at a future date.
The cull cows have been weaned and hopefully the majority of these will be moved on in the next few weeks. There are a variety of reasons why they are gone. Age, feet issues, in the case of two their temperament at calving, while another two are always a bit too lively at handling and no daughters of theirs have been retained because of this, so that limits the potential of their offspring.
Another four scanned not in-calf. Incidentally, two of these cows had calves that were 18kg and 20kg above the average calf birth weight for this year of 40kg.
The first and second calvers were next on the list for weaning. The majority of them are due from late February onwards so they will get a period of time on their own in the shed before the older cows join them.
Due to a sub-fertile bull, a good proportion of the older cows aren’t due until April. As frustrating as this is, it could be worse.
I was speaking to a man recently who had no cow in calf to a bull he bought. His vet fertility-tested the bull and the test said he could not be fertile. With little interest being shown in his predicament from the man he bought the bull from, he may have to sell up.
Farmers’ Rights March
The Farmers’ Rights March has a special place in west Cork’s agricultural history. Earlier this year, I met Jim Morris. Jim was one of 16 men who walked 217 miles from Bantry to Dublin for farmers’ rights. It was fascinating to hear the personal stories of the march and the obstacles they encountered, including a minister for agriculture who would not engage with them.
Hindsight showed where his loyalties lay. They sought 11 basic rights, things we take for granted now. Among them, number three, the right to a comprehensive rural economic development programme and number six, the right to agricultural education.
Some of the challenges of 1966 remain today in terms of rural employment and farm income levels. As someone said, you would struggle to get them to walk now and if you did they would probably go in different directions. Everyone has their own views on the IFA now, but Irish agriculture owes a debt of gratitude to those men and women who forced the government into listening to rural Ireland.
1966 Farmers' Rights March: remembering the west Cork brigade
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