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We are outside every day in the evenings after school. We love it. We just have to go across the yard to the farm. At the moment, we are in the middle of calving. We feed calves, we help Dad milk the cows and sometimes in the spring we help him bring in the silage.
We have Friesian heifers and we started breeding Fleckvieh last year, so we have a few of them too. I like the mix of them because with the black and white and red, they look nice and colourful. The Friesian and Fleckvieh have a similar temperament.
While a cow is calving, we watch from the other side of the gate. Then, when the calf is born, we come in with the cold water and pour it in its ear to wake it up. If it is safe, we help jack out calves with dad.
New arrivals
In 2020, we had twin Friesian heifers. They were red and we called them Lottie and Lizzie. They ended up being red because their mother was a cross. At the time, Dancing with the Stars was on the telly and Ava was going for Lottie Ryan. We made up the name Lizzie because in our yard, twins have to have the same letter name, so L and L. Lottie and Lizzie are still with us, they are good. They are second calvers this year.
We saw Lottie and Lizzie being born. It looks good when they are being born. It goes very slowly sometimes and very quick other times. Our first cow this year calved at 2.30pm. We help dad name the calves as well. We have a calf called Courtney, after Courtney Brosnan, the Irish soccer goalkeeper.
We have McCabe named after Katie McCabe, the captain of the Irish soccer team and we have Bó because that is the Irish name for cow. We haven’t named the others yet – we don’t have time to come up with all the names!
Dad lets us put the clusters up on our favourite cows. The clusters are easy to use. Ella, Ginger, Buttercup, Angie, Indigo and Crystal are our favourites. They are calm and they come up to you and start licking you.
It doesn’t take us too long to feed the calves because they love the milk. With the Friesian heifers, you have to go with the bucket and with the Fleckvieh and any bulls, Angus or whiteheads, you have to go with the cap – the bottle and teat as granny and granddad say in Kilkenny. The Friesian heifers are much easier to teach to drink.
We’ll be feeding calves until around Easter this year, because we are having a few late calvers.
Pike or Sprong?
We sit beside dad in the tractor when he is feeding the cows in the shed. Anything that is left behind we throw it in with the pike. We call it a pike here, but granny and granddad call it a sprong.
Then, we’ll be looking forward to getting out for the silage. First, we mow the field. Then we get our uncle to pick it up with the wagon and the New Holland. Dad is in the JCB teleporter in the yard and he backs it up into the pit.
In the summer, we’ll be baling and still doing the silage. In the hot weather, we keep an eye on what dad is doing when we go to the beach with mam. We can see our yard from the beach, which is handy as we don’t have a long drive to see the sea.
During the summer holidays, we go up to granny and grandad’s in Kilkenny, [Maura and Tom Murphy, Swiftsheath]. We go to the shows with them. We help them hold the calves at the YMA [Young Members Association of cattle showing].
They show us how to lead the calves properly and make a halter, brush the calves and clean down their hooves.
A lot of our classmates don’t have farms, but a few of them do. Ava’s best friend Aisling doesn’t have a farm, but she likes coming down to our house to see all the cows. She thinks they all look alike! You have to really know the farm to know the cows.
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