- Location
- Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk
Isn’t the weather up and down the last fortnight? One minute it was a late spring, still bitterly cold nights with overcoat weather daytime, as the sheep dejectedly sat watching for a blade of grass to appear. Then suddenly last week it was hot and muggy, and verdant foliage was erupting underfoot…to the delight of my beleaguered stock. The smell of fresh growth permeated the atmosphere, and the remaining pile of round bales more or less stopped dwindling. I would say that, before the temperature lifted, a trip off the moor revealed a lot of other peoples sheep were looking equally dejected about their yellow bare fields. But the lambs were mostly looking pretty forrard, I guess I wasn’t the only one who went on feeding something to ewes milking off bare pasture. Now it’s come back cold and wet. Oh good.
We’re full on calving, with a whack of fresh Galloways on the ground and another round of South Devons. The earlier batch of South Devons are up and away, after a lot of bother with big teats/ blind quarters/calves not sucking/cows not standing…really, I had a belly full of it last month. One perky little chap had a heifer for his mother, and she tried quite earnestly to stamp on him whenever he fed – he’s a bright little spark, and quickly learnt to stand right under her belly. He was obviously a candidate for not having had enough colostrum…..and do please stop smugly telling me how you tube each calf at birth with 2 litres -it’s simply not like that out on the veldt. This chap did get a litre down him from the freezer, but still went on to develop 2 matching little lumps under his jaw. They didn’t change much until last week, when they suddenly swelled until he looked like an ambitious hamster. A phone call to y’on vetnary brought and excited response that it might be some unheard of notifiable pox, and a hurried visit. Happily, a closer look revealed it was calf diphtheria brought on by compromised immuno-whatsit. Even happier, the great lumps had both burst by the time we examined him. Less happily I was the one who grabbed him for the vet, and got a trace of the green gunk on my sleeve, and Wow! That stuff stinks. But at least the calf is up and away.
It’s a very special time for me with the Galloways, tagging and ringing the new arrivals. As I reported a couple of years ago, patience and a kind word or two, along with a moderately ruthless culling protocol, have found me with a herd happy enough to allow me to grab each calf in turn, and do unspeakable things with implements of torture, with scarcely a voice raised. Of course, should a calf start bawling the white knuckle ride begins as ever, with a swirling ball of aunties assisting mum as she roars in my face. But if I can keep junior quiet, there’s a good chance I get no more than sniffed carefully as I work. It’s a Zen thing, and one which brings deep peace to my soul…albeit with a paradoxical pint of adrenalin when things kick off. And once more, let’s be very clear that I’m doing this of my own free will….if it goes wrong one day, it’ll be no-ones fault but my own. Perhaps the risk taking is a faint echo of a hirsute teararse youngster now long gone.
Anyway, gotta keep up with the paperwork. There’s calf registrations and long lists of tag numbers of yearlings away to grass keep to record when I get back to the kitchen table. I could do without the bother, but rules is rules guv. Some rascal tells me the wretched imbeciles will soon want lists of which sheep are where at any given time, with their matching electronic chip tags. Oh how I’ve dreaded this. Apart from that I’m also busy enough ferrying out said yearlings, spreading poop and starting to lead ewes and lambs out of in-bye and up onto the peat. The mowing ground which got poached over winter…and did it ever…. now needs rolling. The boy has brushed a bit of barley into some of it, with vague intentions of trying a bit of wholecrop. It’s a good plan, as far as it goes, although the corvids are caning it now, and the rodents will give it hell if we get any baled worth talking about. I have tried it before, and old Roland seems to be able to smell which bales are which, and chew his way through in just the right spot. We’ll see, although I’m pleased the lad is keen whatever.
We’re full on calving, with a whack of fresh Galloways on the ground and another round of South Devons. The earlier batch of South Devons are up and away, after a lot of bother with big teats/ blind quarters/calves not sucking/cows not standing…really, I had a belly full of it last month. One perky little chap had a heifer for his mother, and she tried quite earnestly to stamp on him whenever he fed – he’s a bright little spark, and quickly learnt to stand right under her belly. He was obviously a candidate for not having had enough colostrum…..and do please stop smugly telling me how you tube each calf at birth with 2 litres -it’s simply not like that out on the veldt. This chap did get a litre down him from the freezer, but still went on to develop 2 matching little lumps under his jaw. They didn’t change much until last week, when they suddenly swelled until he looked like an ambitious hamster. A phone call to y’on vetnary brought and excited response that it might be some unheard of notifiable pox, and a hurried visit. Happily, a closer look revealed it was calf diphtheria brought on by compromised immuno-whatsit. Even happier, the great lumps had both burst by the time we examined him. Less happily I was the one who grabbed him for the vet, and got a trace of the green gunk on my sleeve, and Wow! That stuff stinks. But at least the calf is up and away.
It’s a very special time for me with the Galloways, tagging and ringing the new arrivals. As I reported a couple of years ago, patience and a kind word or two, along with a moderately ruthless culling protocol, have found me with a herd happy enough to allow me to grab each calf in turn, and do unspeakable things with implements of torture, with scarcely a voice raised. Of course, should a calf start bawling the white knuckle ride begins as ever, with a swirling ball of aunties assisting mum as she roars in my face. But if I can keep junior quiet, there’s a good chance I get no more than sniffed carefully as I work. It’s a Zen thing, and one which brings deep peace to my soul…albeit with a paradoxical pint of adrenalin when things kick off. And once more, let’s be very clear that I’m doing this of my own free will….if it goes wrong one day, it’ll be no-ones fault but my own. Perhaps the risk taking is a faint echo of a hirsute teararse youngster now long gone.
Anyway, gotta keep up with the paperwork. There’s calf registrations and long lists of tag numbers of yearlings away to grass keep to record when I get back to the kitchen table. I could do without the bother, but rules is rules guv. Some rascal tells me the wretched imbeciles will soon want lists of which sheep are where at any given time, with their matching electronic chip tags. Oh how I’ve dreaded this. Apart from that I’m also busy enough ferrying out said yearlings, spreading poop and starting to lead ewes and lambs out of in-bye and up onto the peat. The mowing ground which got poached over winter…and did it ever…. now needs rolling. The boy has brushed a bit of barley into some of it, with vague intentions of trying a bit of wholecrop. It’s a good plan, as far as it goes, although the corvids are caning it now, and the rodents will give it hell if we get any baled worth talking about. I have tried it before, and old Roland seems to be able to smell which bales are which, and chew his way through in just the right spot. We’ll see, although I’m pleased the lad is keen whatever.
