Do you enjoy farming?

[toquark]

As a part timer, I enjoy it on the whole. I simply wouldn’t bother if I didn’t and would stop if I stopped enjoying it.

Days like Monday take a bit of beating - sun splitting the sky lambs running circles round you and the grass greening up.

Days like today - horizontal sleet, two toddlers bouncing off the walls at home and a wife needing a hand with them and ewes needing checked in rented fields 10 miles away. Could have seen it far enough.

I get a real kick out of improving the ground, the infrastructure and the stock, especially now we’ve been at it a few years. I love the planning and strategising stage and the implementation gives me great satisfaction. decent prices over the last couple of years have also helped.

 

[Two Tone]

Here is our friendly deer, Mildred today. I have just fed her an apple core and she was literally calling me for some more!
She is a nurse hind born in 2007. She probably wont calve again, but is useful in teaching weaned calves the ropes each year.
She and all the adult deer were day one treated for a TB test on Monday. Deer and sheep are regarded as ‘Spillover’ animals, meaning that they can potentially catch TB and potentially pass it on to cattle. Our herd is isolated from any cattle and never comes into contact with them. However, Badgers can potentially infect them if they come into contact with cattle and vice versa. Every single herd of cattle around us have TB and APHA, in their infinite (make it up as they go along) wisdom wanted us to check to see if any our deer have have it. The only deer ever leaving the farm are for Venison aged 18 to 24 months old, all are inspected post slaughter for TB and none have ever been found. There is no market for cull hinds and stags, therefore we keep them as nurses until they die naturally.

Deer farming is a pleasure, though can sometimes be dangerous, especially when de-antlering breeding and venison stags. I still have a nasty scar from a fight with a venison stag in January. But sights like Mildred and all her friends enjoying a day like today make farming a enjoyable, pleasurable experience.

Day 2, the results reading day of the TB testing is tomorrow. If any fail or are inconclusive, APHA want them immediately destroyed on site.
We’ll see just how pleasurable and enjoyable that experience then is. Particularly those hinds that are within 6 weeks of calving!

 

[The Seeker]

I find myself really struggling to gain any excitment day to day recently. I get up when the alarm wakes me, and I’d quite happily and easily just roll over and go back to sleep. Even at work I can think of plenty of jobs but the motivation just isn’t there, so I end up doing them, but feeling almost bored while I’m doing it.

It’s probably a combination of high prices, ropey weather for April, mornings are still dark when I get up etc but I don’t like it. Even when I go home, the TV Is crap, so we have tea, and once my daughter is in bed we just find something crappy to sit and watch until bedtime, then it’s rinse and repeat.

Still.... summers coming, cows will be out soon and silage will be growing!!

Yup I hear ya

 

[Lofty1984]

View attachment 1027432
Here is our friendly deer, Mildred today. I have just fed her an apple core and she was literally calling me for some more!
She is a nurse hind born in 2007. She probably wont calve again, but is useful in teaching weaned calves the ropes each year.
She and all the adult deer were day one treated for a TB test on Monday. Deer and sheep are regarded as ‘Spillover’ animals, meaning that they can potentially catch TB and potentially pass it on to cattle. Our herd is isolated from any cattle and never comes into contact with them. However, Badgers can potentially infect them if they come into contact with cattle and vice versa. Every single herd of cattle around us have TB and APHA, in their infinite (make it up as they go along) wisdom wanted us to check to see if any our deer have have it. The only deer ever leaving the farm are for Venison aged 18 to 24 months old, all are inspected post slaughter for TB and none have ever been found. There is no market for cull hinds and stags, therefore we keep them as nurses until they die naturally.

Deer farming is a pleasure, though can sometimes be dangerous, especially when de-antlering breeding and venison stags. I still have a nasty scar from a fight with a venison stag in January. But sights like Mildred and all her friends enjoying a day like today make farming a enjoyable, pleasurable experience.

Day 2, the results reading day of the TB testing is tomorrow. If any fail or are inconclusive, APHA want them immediately destroyed on site.
We’ll see just how pleasurable and enjoyable that experience then is. Particularly those hinds that are within 6 weeks of calving!

Good luck

 

[jellybean]

View attachment 1027432
Here is our friendly deer, Mildred today. I have just fed her an apple core and she was literally calling me for some more!
She is a nurse hind born in 2007. She probably wont calve again, but is useful in teaching weaned calves the ropes each year.
She and all the adult deer were day one treated for a TB test on Monday. Deer and sheep are regarded as ‘Spillover’ animals, meaning that they can potentially catch TB and potentially pass it on to cattle. Our herd is isolated from any cattle and never comes into contact with them. However, Badgers can potentially infect them if they come into contact with cattle and vice versa. Every single herd of cattle around us have TB and APHA, in their infinite (make it up as they go along) wisdom wanted us to check to see if any our deer have have it. The only deer ever leaving the farm are for Venison aged 18 to 24 months old, all are inspected post slaughter for TB and none have ever been found. There is no market for cull hinds and stags, therefore we keep them as nurses until they die naturally.

Deer farming is a pleasure, though can sometimes be dangerous, especially when de-antlering breeding and venison stags. I still have a nasty scar from a fight with a venison stag in January. But sights like Mildred and all her friends enjoying a day like today make farming a enjoyable, pleasurable experience.

Day 2, the results reading day of the TB testing is tomorrow. If any fail or are inconclusive, APHA want them immediately destroyed on site.
We’ll see just how pleasurable and enjoyable that experience then is. Particularly those hinds that are within 6 weeks of calving!

You may want to ask APHA for the data on the true accuracy of the TB skin test in deer but don't expect to extract an answer easily.

 

[Two Tone]

Good luck

Forgive me for not saying thank you, but I didn’t get much sleep last night.
However, I’m pleased to say that they all passed.

We used to be TB Accredited 20 years ago, but gave this up because the premiums and the cost of testing wiped out all the profits from deer farming, so gave it up.
I was convinced that due to the location of our herd and the fact that they are so far away from any of the surrounding farms that keep cattle, that we were safe. But after a while you do begin to doubt yourself. Nonetheless, we were right and have managed to prove it to APHA. I can understanding their concern bearing in mind that every singe one of our neighbours that keep cattle, continue to have reactors. However, I have always said that deer are our least most domesticated of all our farm animals, meaning that any problems in them caused them to die out of the herd years ago.

You may want to ask APHA for the data on the true accuracy of the TB skin test in deer but don't expect to extract an answer easily.

We had a very productive meeting with three representatives of APHA in March and this was one of the many questions I put to them. They showed me strong evidence that the skin test on deer is actually more accurate than it is on Cattle!

TB is a dreadful disease and I feel so sorry for all those that have been affected by it. We all love our animals and it is devastating when we have to lose them because of such scenarios. APHA seem pretty convinced that the various measures they have in place is working and that there is a good chance that they are getting on top of it. Infections continue to take place, but generally the numbers are coming down.
It’s not only me and my team of helpers that are so pleased that our deer herd is free of it, but APHA themselves are pleased that they were able today to cancel their need to euthanise any of our deer and cancel the need to have to pick any carcasses up and take them to their VI centre for examination.

I’m a one man band working Farm Manager on this farm and deer farming fits in well with the arable enterprise. Still allowing me to do all the necessary paperwork, management running, office work, BPS and CS work etc. But I have a superb team to call upon when needed to assist with the deer handling when needed. Not just in physically handling the deer in a handling unit, which is dangerous enough, but being able to move them using quad bikes. Not so much herding and chasing them, but knowing when to stop and let them go through gateways themselves.
On top of which, we have a brilliant organisation that control the wild deer around us, preventing the risk of outside contamination.

My thanks to them all. We are all pretty relieved to say they least!


P.S. We are pretty convinced that 15 year old Mildred is actually pregnant too!

 

[Derrick Hughes]

What other way of life gives you so much pain.

Marriage

 

[MickyMook]

Right to roam isn't a thing over here, it's such a huge difference. My land is as private as my back lawn, the difference is huge. I have 12 houses bordering some of my land and I never have an issue. I don't envy you

I have to say that if I was across the water where everyone and their dog (literally) seem to be able to go wherever they like without being able to tell them to F off I think I'd be arrested sooner or later.

I have a lot of lanes and have a little trouble with tresspassers but for the most part they are well enough behaved, so I try not to make enemies.

 

[Kidds]

I have had a tough time this last 6 months and seriously thought of giving up, the farming wasn't tough it was looking after my dying Mum that was tough.
Don't want to sound harsh about it but now that is over it is like a weight being lifted and I can get on again. It has taken a few weeks but I think I am getting back into my stride again. Just this last week I was in my fields and said to myself this is what I want to do and actually felt happy again.
Mum was a famer and a grower, she loved growing anything but after I stopped growing sunflowers as cut flowers she took it on and sunflowers were always a big thing with us.
This year I am going to grow an acre of them, just to look at and in memory of Mum.
Yes I enjoy farming, it is just buggering about in my fields doing as I please.

 

[Cab-over Pete]

Good thinking, glad the sunflowers turned out well.

In a similar vein, last Saturday was 21 years since my Dad died. My brother and I hooked his match plough onto his MF 165 and took our lads down the field to tell them about match ploughing.

It was one of the most enjoyable afternoons I’ve spent in a very long time.

 

[Will 1594]

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If your that way inclined ,cut a path or two through them ,
few words on f b , and open it it up for folk to look at and take pics ,
if you have car park space ,
but prepare to be unindated ,and donate takings to your mothers favorite charity , or the like ,
our tulip man as you may remember , we opended up field and some extensive advertizing , for local respite , end of life hospice ,raised just over £93000.
and do you like farming ,
wife says cut me in half , will say farming ,through it , but her and the boy , are always no 1

 

[aangus]

View attachment 1062276

That brought a tear to my eye

 

[B'o'B]

View attachment 1062276

Thanks for the update, they look great.

 

[JohnGalway]

Simple enough question.
Do you enjoy farming?

Its maybe just the springtime madness and the last couple of days in particular but I can't remember the last time I actually enjoyed doing farming.

I just feel torn out with it all and the never ending shite that seems to head my way.

Fuel, fert, energy prices, some tosser coming to inspect me, cows being a pain, dealing with muppets all the time, etc, etc

I honestly cant think of when i got some satisfaction from anything farming related, even doing stuff I used to enjoy Im thinking about some hassle or another.

Others I ask seem to feel the same, a general "fed up-ness" with it all.

So is it just me then?

I enjoy farming.

I do not enjoy the hassle that comes to me from outside of my farm.

 

[Danllan]

Interesting thread, overall, yes; but... life is full of fits and starts, and the b^llshit - both literal and metaphorical - is often tedious. Unlike the OP, I find that concerns away from the farm sometimes tend to dwell more than others.

 

[Sid]

Why would you give two hoots what anyone else is up to?

Some people make a business out if it!