New year’s resolutions are always nice to make but sometimes hard to keep, and I’m still deciding on some of mine.

It made me think about the animals on the farm, and what resolutions they might make.

My dad has been complaining lately that some of the weanling cattle keep breaking out, so that might be one for them: “We resolve to stay in our field.”

They are kept outdoors during winter and are in a field with on a mix of forage kale, rape and turnip.

An electric fence is moved a metre or so every day, so they always have fresh clean fodder to eat. They have a grass lieback area at the edge of the field, with bales of silage there to eat also.

Unfortunately the electric fence has been playing up and it does not take long for those clever beasts to figure out when it is not working. So a couple of mornings dad has been up there to find all 48 of them gorging where they should not be.

We shall not break from the flock

The sheep might like to consider a few resolutions too, like trying not to get entangled in brambles, not to get stuck on their backs, and to keep in a tight bunch when they are being moved or handled. Maybe: “We shall not break from the flock.”

We had a bunch of them in the yard the other day to give them some mineral supplements. It was a cold day, but at least the rain stayed away for the time we were there.

There were a few with sore feet we were tending to also. When we were just getting to the end of the jobs, the rams decided to break out through one of the pens, and ran away from the yard. Oops … resolution broken already.

Whingey cat

Penny the whippet might promise to stop scratching on the window panes when she wants to get into the house, and Pickles the cat might resolve to be less whingey when he is inside the house, otherwise he will not be in for very long.

I think my dad would like the horses to resolve to stop digging up the ground so much as they run about, but my mum says that’s what they like to do, and that it will soon heal up when the grass starts to grow.

We are hoping to get some hens later in the spring, as Mr and Mrs Fox had their way with the last flock during the summer, and we never replaced them. Perhaps the Fox family could resolve to not eat our hens again this year.

As for me, I think I will commit big time to my running and to my studies this year in school. (My mum will be glad to see this).

I am nearly halfway through my second year, and as my parents like to keep reminding me, it will be no time until my Junior Cert.

So I’d better stay focused and keep the head down, and now that I’ve written it here, I’ll have to keep to it......eeek!

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Charlie's Corner: back to school after the holidays