What a turnaround in the weather we’ve had in the last two weeks. From a shed full of cows and wet fields, we’re now left with only one overdue cow and a couple of young calves, which are a bit young to let loose for the moment. It was great to finally get them out and watch them relaxing in the sun after the long winter.

And just in time too, as this last group picked up a scour out of the blue, and I can only imagine the workload if the whole shed of calves had come down with it.

Of course, we had our usual drama of a calf going missing a day after being let out; though at least it didn’t fall through a ditch into a drain like in other years. It’s nearly always the calves from one Charolais cow, which this happens to as well, so I’m beginning to think intelligence is inherited – or not inherited, in this case. It was also a very inappropriate time for me to discover I had a leak in my wellington; wandering around fields for over an hour with a boot slowly filling with water is not on my list of fun things to do.

Orphan calf

Our orphan calf is thankfully on the other end of the brainpower scale, as it has learned to raid cows in the field after a day. While not ideal, it’s certainly made feeding easier for him. After one wet morning we had after he went out, he resembled a drowned rat more than a pedigree Limousin. Thankfully, he was halter-trained from a young age, so all we had to do was stick a rope on him and walk him a kilometre up to the house and put him under a red lamp to dry off.

With the dry weather, it was also time for Dad to get out the quad and rush-licker and start our annual battle against the rushes. We had a slight oversight with fitting a new pump, as we’d forgotten to jot down or photograph the wiring system before dismantling the old one. With electronics not my strong point, a work-around solution was cobbled together to get it back up and running before the grass got too high in the meadows.

Slurry

Next up is planning on getting our slurry out. Normally we’d be under pressure at this stage, with the tank either full or nearly full. Last year we had to repair a large leak from a drainage pipe in the tank, which meant it was filling with water every time it rained. Luckily, we didn’t have that issue this year, with all the rain recently.

We’ve also signed up to the National Liming Programme and plan to spread 40t around the farm. Hopefully, this should also make some difference to the fields, instead of making us pay more through the nose for fertiliser. As our fields tend to run on the acidic side of the pH scale, we already noticed an improvement in the last couple of years with more lime usage.

Our bull also went off to pastures new. While he went unsold in the ring at Carrick-on-Shannon, we had a number of prospective buyers over the next few days and he was sold to a father-and-son team from Co Sligo. He certainly won’t know himself on the good land over that end of the country.