The dawn feed began as normal. As soon as I entered the shed, the expectant cows lined up in formation at the feed barrier. All seemed ordinary. The therapeutic undertone of 20 furiously-chewing bovines filled the air. Across the slats, the occupants of the calving pens seemed settled.

Content that all were ok, I turned on my heel to feed the bulls. But, the distinctive sound of an infant calf lowing momentarily caught my attention. Strange; our only new addition so far was outdoors in a paddock with its mother. I spun round to see a little white snout poking over the barrier from between two colossal sucklers; a startling, but welcome sight.

The calving shed here is made up of two large slatted pens and five straw-bedded calving pens. Cows move straight from slats into these as they near parturition. At present there are five weanling heifers occupying what are normally two calving pens, but they’ll move to slats as cows and calved turn out and free up space.

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The four cows closest to their ‘due dates’ have been in the calving pens since last Tuesday. On the slats, there is now nothing due until 15 March. Both of the calves so far were bred by the same bull, Lisnagre Elite, and both were nine days early. He has eight more calves due in the coming weeks. We may need to re-jig our planner (and dust off the camera over the slats). Two down; just the 44 to go.

Mother’s teats were cleaned, babe was given a drink and a splash of iodine on her navel and the pair was sent to straw to bond. The cow is by Hillcrest King; a super Simmental bull that has performed well for us in terms of producing both beef and replacements. She has ample milk, calves easily and always displays great mothering abilities. In 2014, she was first out of the blocks at calving and yesterday’s arrival is her fourth calf in her sixth year.

More of the same please...