The bullock was clearly in pain as he lay racked by convulsions on the ground. He was in a paddock with about 30 of his comrades on excellent aftergrass. There were no obvious reasons for his near death-like contortions.
It was only 8.30 in the morning and more in hope than expectation, I texted the only mobile number I had for the group veterinary practice where my former sole practitioner now works.
Within 10 minutes, I had a call back. I explained the symptoms, to be told that there was a vet in the area and, within half an hour, he was in the field.
After a quick examination, he gave an intravenous and a subcutaneous injection. A few minutes later, the bullock popped up and after a few wobbles, began grazing. He hasn’t looked back since.
Apart from the promptness of the vet’s attention, I continue to be struck by the hardiness of the dairy-beef cattle. When we had young bulls, we invariably had 3%-4% mortality per year, which I found incredibly depressing and morale-sapping.
Over the last three years of the new system, we have had one death. While needing to make improvements to reduce the huge variation in individual animal performance, I am convinced that the extra time at grass in the steer system is reducing the overall pressure on both man and beast.
Tillage
On the tillage front, we escaped the deluges that affected some of the south, which meant that over the last week, we were able to get all the winter barley sown and rolled in excellent conditions. I have had a long-standing aim to have the winter barley finished by 10 October, so we have comfortably met that target. We have started to sow the winter wheat – the first of it is going in after spring oats.
We are in a slight dilemma as to whether to follow the just about ready to harvest beans with winter wheat – or to put the wheat in after a field of oilseed rape that’s ready for immediate ploughing and sowing, and which we intended to follow with gluten-free oats.
If we get the beans harvested in the next few days, then we will follow the beans with wheat but, if delayed, we will switch the oats to follow the beans, on the basis that if there is another very difficult weather autumn, the oats can wait until spring. The next few days will settle it.
Meanwhile, we have treated the Clearfield oilseed rape for charlock. The capacity to treat charlock is, of course, the main point in using the Clearfield rather than one of the modern higher yielding hybrid varieties.
We have also received our four-yearly soil samples back. I was surprised that some of the grassland needed lime, which we were able to have applied immediately.
The stand-out feature of the sampling is how difficult it is to get phosphate levels up on a tillage system, especially when all the straw is being removed.
Almost everywhere is at a P index of 2, which is going to involve continuous spending on at least a maintenance level of application. I was also slightly surprised at the cost of €35 per sample. With some fields having five samples, the cost has mounted up.
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