Why is it that cows always decide to get sick on a Sunday or any Bank Holiday they can remember? It’s almost like they have some sort of in-built calendar and they get a reminder that it’s the day the vets are closed, thus time to be ill. Either that or calving, they must have some sort of rota worked out with the weather forecast. Some nights I can almost imagine them having a chat when it’s lashing rain, something like: “Alright Jenny, you’re up, it’s 3am and it’s blowing a hoolie outside. And make sure they need to use the calving jack!”

This time it was our oldest cow who was suddenly off her feed on Sunday morning, standing looking very sorry for herself in the shed with a hump on her back like a camel. While it’s not usually seen in cows here, I suspected a chill or the onset of pneumonia.

One handy tool I happen to have in the shed is a stethoscope, which was rescued from being dumped by a doctor cousin.

This meant I could check her lungs and with her temperature, as she had no signs other than a bit of a blow to her breathing along with zero appetite and cold ears.

Being cautious, I still rang for the vet, as cows over 10 years have a habit of going downhill quickly and I wanted to get some intravenous drugs into her. She also has a calf at foot that is a brother of my ‘Tommy Boy’ who won first prize in Carrigallen Mart a few years back, and looking at this fella, he’s of the same muscular persuasion. While he had no trouble being calved, he’s piled on the muscle since and even the vet was looking at me a bit sceptically when I said he was born the first week of January.

Thankfully, the vet also had the same diagnosis as myself and with some anti-inflammatories and a vitamin shot for good measure, the cow was back eating in a few hours.

For once, the vet wasn’t in much of a rush and we happily bantered away while treating her, though having found myself covered in snot after being on the halter end of the cow, I was thinking more of a shower. I’m immensely happy with our local vets and I often joke about going to them instead of the hospital as I’m likely to be treated quicker. Though the last time I needed stitches, the local nurse wasn’t too impressed with me saying that, as she knew I was being serious.

Hopefully, the next time we need the vet will be to fertility test our young bull, though he got a chance to cover a heifer a short while back. Time will tell as to whether that’s worked out. Being just under a year old, it’s debatable whether he’s fertile or not, but he certainly wasn’t saying no when the heifer was presented to him.

We always get them certified as fertile before selling, as if something did happen and he wasn’t getting cows in calf, it’s proof that they were sold in good faith.

While he won’t be sold until April, he’s doing well with rope training, and last week I splashed out on new cordless clippers to train myself how to clip him correctly for the show-ring. Before this, I always relied on friends to do it, but this way I can also clip everything before housing.

I’ll wrangle someone to train me on one of the other animals first, as I know well if I attempted to do the bull first, he’d look like he was dragged through a hedge backwards.