‘It was all go over the weekend with last of cows still left to calve'

There’s something really nice about Easter time on the farm. Easter fell early this year. Still, two months of spring work has been completed. There are only six cows left to calve. I hate April calves. I probably should say, I hate cows that calve in April. It’s hard not to have them.

The cow that calves on 1 April has already lost two months production. Her counterpart that calved in the first week of February could already have produced between 70 and 80 kgs of milk solids. She’s healthy, cycling and settled into milk production. More importantly, her heifer calf is already two months old and weighing 80kgs. She’s even heavier if the calf is a pure-bred Friesian calf.

First round of grazing

It’s worth thinking about the figures and the possibilities that are there to make adjustments. Early calving makes sense. Incremental changes add up and the years go by quickly and suddenly targets that were a pipe dream become reality on your farm. Making progress is a good feeling.

We have ground that suits early calving. The cows have completed the first round of grazing and have begun the second round. Despite inclement weather every other day, there was no disruption to grazing. Chatting to friends, particularly in northern parts of the country, they tell me that they’ve had huge difficulty trying to get cows and cattle out. Our country might be small but the diversities in farming styles are very varied, creating beautiful countryside.

Nevertheless, despite the broken weather, all animals will get out eventually. There is no nicer sight than cows and cattle grazing.

Before the Easter weekend, it was all go. On Thursday, Gearóid Harrington was spreading fertiliser. My daughter Julie, my grandson Ricky and I were watching him from the living room window. We noticed how clean Gearóid keeps his machinery. Sean from Smith’s contractors was spreading dung. He had a long draw up through the village of Kerry Pike and he too had done a fine job of keeping the road clean. All this matters in our social licence to farm.

We have ground that suits early calving. The cows have completed the first round of grazing and have begun the second round

I told Ricky I’d have to negotiate a bit of dung for the garden from Tim before it was all gone. He asked: “How will you do that, Granny?” I said: “I have my ways of getting around him. I’ll tell him the raspberries and the rhubarb need dung, as both performed badly last year.” I explained that Tim liked picking fresh fruit in the garden and liked rhubarb tarts. We’d also find out if any of the men needed lunch. Ricky and I headed to the yard. We met a very busy Tim and he was rushing to be somewhere. We found out that Sean would be for lunch. Ricky was perturbed. “Granny, you never asked about the dung.” I told him that Tim was so busy that he might have said no and that I’d chose my time later and the answer would be a yes. I could see him processing that information for his own negotiations.

Calves

Over Easter, the calves were disbudded. Philip and Colm come together for this operation. They like to do the dehorning themselves. Blarney Vets anaesthetise the calves and Philip and Colm do the dehorning. You could hear a pin drop when the calves were asleep. Gradually, they woke up and headed to the automatic feeder for a feed. There is no need for animals to feel pain even for dehorning. Calves should be disbudded at seven days. In the busy spring days, it’s not easy to get to it. So, if you bunch them together in groups, then they need to be anaesthetised. It’s wise to keep that social licence to the forefront of our minds.