With the unpredictable wet weather over the last few weeks, time has been put to good use here in helping my parents move house. It’s remarkable how much stuff we can accumulate over the years without realising we’re doing it. And it’s only when everything needs to be moved do we realise the error of our ways and wonder why a pile of useless tat was stored for no good reason. “Sure it might be useful one day,” seems to serve as the excuse around here.

I’ll admit there’s occasionally a lightbulb moment where my father or I go off for a rummage in one shed or another and come back with a piece of metal, plastic or a similar gadget which is exactly what we need to fix something. Though these occasions happen far too rarely to excuse the amount of things which seem to have amassed over the years.

Looking at the fields around the house it’s difficult to imagine this time last year when it felt like the whole of Ireland was melting. Everyone was living off ice creams and wistfully looking for rain clouds on the horizon.

It’s a far cry from today, where I’m sitting with a range full of sticks heating the radiator beside me. This inclement weather has also caused a bit of hassle with the stock. We’ve had the three sets of twins in and out of the shed so many times, I’m beginning to think they would be masters of the hokey cokey if they ever felt so inclined.

Between scours, incessant rainfall and sodden land, they just couldn’t get a good run staying out, though hopefully they’re out to stay now. The scour in question was a persistent one which appeared here for the first time this year. Most calves seemed to get it around the two-week mark, yet cleared up with three days of treatment. All stayed in good form, were sucking away and playing, yet I finally got fed up with the endless treatment of calves and took a sample to the vets. So it was certainly a surprise to get a result of cryptosporidium! I’d always imagined calves would be much more sickly with it, though timely colostrum to every calf this year was a likely help. However, it’s baffling as to where it came from. Being a closed herd which hasn’t bought in for many years, it can only have been through visitors or wildlife, something which we’ll have to look at if it occurs again.

So with that in mind the shed and calving pens are in need of a disinfectant wash. It’s certainly not my favourite job in the world but if done correctly, should ease issues next year for calving. There’s no lack of water around for it either.

Luckily for the last two calves of the year, both were born outside so hopefully they’ll have managed to avoid any chance of infection. Two easy-calving bulls and two quiet cows due together, so what could go wrong? One cow hatching a plan to steal the newborn calf off the other one, of course. The rigours of calving seemingly not for her, she decided that this calf which had magically appeared in front of her would do her nicely. Thankfully her belly was bigger than her love for motherhood, so with a bucket of nuts and a bit of coaxing to move her away to another field, the correct mother and daughter were reunited!

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Farmer Writes: three sets of twins and curlews

Farmer Writes: patches of ground that would suck the wellies off you