It’s been such a super year to date for cattle thrive. This was evident when finishing off the cow and calf weighing.

This time last year, most of the cows were about 30kg back on their 2017 weight. This year, most of the older cows had gone up by anything from 30kg to 80kg per head. I haven’t the finishing heifers weighed yet but hopefully they should weigh well also given the current beef climate for the remainder of the year. I’m glad there aren’t many of them around.

The average cow weight ended up at 625kg. The presence of a lot of younger cows in the herd helps to keep the weight down.

The scales is a very important tool on the farm and it shows up the effects that the age of cow, management and the environment they’re in have on an animal.

In the first year or two we thought there was something major wrong but now we are at the point where we know what the expected daily gains are likely to be for each land block. Warts and all, the bull calves averaged 1.17kg/day and the heifers 1.06kg/day.

In our first year back using traditional beef breeds, our heaviest calf was a Hereford heifer with a growth rate of 1.44kg/day.

While weighing, calves were given their initial IBR vaccine and, thanks to the good year to date, they also got their first worm dose. Dung samples were taken in June and the egg count was low so they were left alone until September.

At the time of writing the main bull calf group still has not received a worm dose in its lifetime but will be sorted before the weekend. In times past, weaning would be starting around now but with cows now calving from early March onwards that too has been pushed back a bit.

I don’t know if we’re more prepared for Brexit or not after the beef protest saga. Hopefully things will settle down and time will be allowed for the agreement to be both implemented and worked through.

Factories are well aware that a small number of protesters could bring a plant to a halt in future.

An upshot of the protests is that there is now more political awareness and interest in policy among farmers. I don’t recall farmers ever being as invested in the outcome of talks in my lifetime.

The protests ushered in a new breed or maybe even a new era of farm politics and mirrors what has been happening in politics at local and national level for over 20 years, with the rise of independents. It’s a challenge for the more established groups and how they adapt to this new environment will be interesting.

In uncertain times, it’s more important than ever to have a social outlet from the farm.

Music and sport have a long standing tradition as two of the mainstays in providing a positive distraction from farming. There was plenty excitement in Ardfield at the weekend as the locals won the West Cork Junior A football final for the first time since the club was founded in 1892. It was a game I couldn’t lose as the locals were playing Ballinascarthy, the club I was involved with for 20 years. Needless to say, there was plenty banter floating around in the buildup.

After seeing the seriousness of the protests at factory gates over the last two months it was great to witness such a happy historic occasion.

What’s rare is wonderful.