- Location
- Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk
The nuts and bolts of my days are leaving their mark just now. Once everything is fed in the morning – and that alone can take a few hours- the highest priority just now is to get batches of cows treated for liver fluke. The life cycle of this pernicious little blighter of a parasite is a multi-species and highly mobile journey. It includes hitching a ride in a mud snail- where it multiplies into thousands of more little flukes- before being hoovered up by hungry cows munching grass in wets patches. From the cow’s guts –you’re not eating breakfast are you? - the larvae migrate to the cows liver – which is quite a feat in itself if you think about it. I mean, there’s hardly going to be a clearly signed escalator is there? And from there, after eating great holes therein, it moves on to the bile duct, shedding eggs which the cow obligingly poops out to re-infect more snails.
And yes, humans can get infested with liver fluke. While you might not notice a mild case, the complications are such that you really wouldn’t want to experience the full range of symptoms. As it happens, the route of infection wouldn’t be likely to have anything to do with cattle. But I’d think twice about eating raw freshwater fish, or unwashed watercress if I were you though.
A heavy infection can knock cattle and sheep about quite badly, and after decades of not having to treat, a series of wet summers backalong has got me treating all the adult cattle and sheep again. And for this, we’re giving them an injection of the orange gloop, which stains everything it touches…Every damn thing. For some reason, the cows aren’t always enthusiastic about me sticking needles in them, and don’t always oblige as we run them through the crush pen. They’ll actively try to retaliate, kicking and slamming themselves about. Some of the Galloways swing their shaggy heads round in the chute and try to bite me as I grip a pinch of skin with forefinger and thumb, to get the needle under. With cold rain drenching everything, hands going numb and getting bashed around, and mud and cow crap spattering everything, it is not the most glamorous way to pass my time. I do love my cows…indeed, their presence brings solace to my battered soul. But it’s far nicer to be walking among them on a summers evening than treating them for fluke in December!
When I say it’s leaving its mark on me, I’m not joking.
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In between, as I alluded t’other day, I am pushing on with repairs and improvements around the place. Yesterday’s task, before one group of cows comes indoors, was to fix up their concrete water trough. It was set on a footing of chippings 16-17 years ago when the dirt floored building was put up, which was fine. But each year, however hard we try to avoid it, an inch or so of dirt seems to get scraped out with the dung. This had left the trough standing on a precarious looking pillar, just waiting for someone to give it a nudge, and spoil my day. So Phil picked up a couple of bags of aggregate and some cement on his way back from feeding an off lying group of cows, and after munch, we set to digging around this trough, looking for harder ground. By the time we’d found dirt solid enough to work from, and nailed up some shuttering…..the boxed off mould looked like it’d take half a lorry load to fill. With the light already failing, we set to. As one of the team mixed, another used the telehandler to shuttle the resultant porridge up to the building from the mixer, and I filled the mould and kept everything shipshape. Shovel handles were fairly bending to keep in front of the dusk. And then, when no-one was looking, I dropped a barrow load of misshapen lumps of granite in the mould, tapping them down with an iron bar, to bring the level up quicker. Bodger that I am. no-one will ever know, so don’t say a word.
There’s a perverse satisfaction in pushing on with a little task which suddenly grows to fill an afternoon, and finally washing down the mixer and tools under floodlights. It makes knocking off feel all the more deserved, and a soothing West coast single malt analgesic seem perfectly justified*.
*not that I need much justification.
Surprisingly, the following morning, the finished work even looked more or less like we knew what we were doing.
Meanwhile, have a peaceful and happy festive period. Evenings will soon be pulling out!
-------------------------
Anton's articles are syndicated exclusively by TFF by kind permission of the author and WMN.
Anton also writes regularly for the Dartmoor Magazine
And yes, humans can get infested with liver fluke. While you might not notice a mild case, the complications are such that you really wouldn’t want to experience the full range of symptoms. As it happens, the route of infection wouldn’t be likely to have anything to do with cattle. But I’d think twice about eating raw freshwater fish, or unwashed watercress if I were you though.
A heavy infection can knock cattle and sheep about quite badly, and after decades of not having to treat, a series of wet summers backalong has got me treating all the adult cattle and sheep again. And for this, we’re giving them an injection of the orange gloop, which stains everything it touches…Every damn thing. For some reason, the cows aren’t always enthusiastic about me sticking needles in them, and don’t always oblige as we run them through the crush pen. They’ll actively try to retaliate, kicking and slamming themselves about. Some of the Galloways swing their shaggy heads round in the chute and try to bite me as I grip a pinch of skin with forefinger and thumb, to get the needle under. With cold rain drenching everything, hands going numb and getting bashed around, and mud and cow crap spattering everything, it is not the most glamorous way to pass my time. I do love my cows…indeed, their presence brings solace to my battered soul. But it’s far nicer to be walking among them on a summers evening than treating them for fluke in December!
When I say it’s leaving its mark on me, I’m not joking.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
In between, as I alluded t’other day, I am pushing on with repairs and improvements around the place. Yesterday’s task, before one group of cows comes indoors, was to fix up their concrete water trough. It was set on a footing of chippings 16-17 years ago when the dirt floored building was put up, which was fine. But each year, however hard we try to avoid it, an inch or so of dirt seems to get scraped out with the dung. This had left the trough standing on a precarious looking pillar, just waiting for someone to give it a nudge, and spoil my day. So Phil picked up a couple of bags of aggregate and some cement on his way back from feeding an off lying group of cows, and after munch, we set to digging around this trough, looking for harder ground. By the time we’d found dirt solid enough to work from, and nailed up some shuttering…..the boxed off mould looked like it’d take half a lorry load to fill. With the light already failing, we set to. As one of the team mixed, another used the telehandler to shuttle the resultant porridge up to the building from the mixer, and I filled the mould and kept everything shipshape. Shovel handles were fairly bending to keep in front of the dusk. And then, when no-one was looking, I dropped a barrow load of misshapen lumps of granite in the mould, tapping them down with an iron bar, to bring the level up quicker. Bodger that I am. no-one will ever know, so don’t say a word.
There’s a perverse satisfaction in pushing on with a little task which suddenly grows to fill an afternoon, and finally washing down the mixer and tools under floodlights. It makes knocking off feel all the more deserved, and a soothing West coast single malt analgesic seem perfectly justified*.
*not that I need much justification.
Surprisingly, the following morning, the finished work even looked more or less like we knew what we were doing.
Meanwhile, have a peaceful and happy festive period. Evenings will soon be pulling out!
-------------------------
Anton's articles are syndicated exclusively by TFF by kind permission of the author and WMN.
Anton also writes regularly for the Dartmoor Magazine
