Farmer Writes: Not everything puts on weight over Christmas

I’m fairly sure at this moment in time my body is made up of 75% selection box, 10% Jameson and the rest is probably water just to keep me alive.

I’d imagine most people over indulge a bit over Christmas, but this year I hurt my back on Christmas Eve, which meant I wasn’t getting much exercise over the festive period either.

Thank God for my wife and daughters or I don’t know how the stock would have been fed as I was unable to lift anything and am still far from 100% almost three weeks later.

I just lifted something, something not overly heavy and bang I’m more or less out of action.

As I had ruptured my hamstring just before Christmas last year, Dawn is starting to think I’m doing it on purpose just to get out of doing any work over the festive period.

Farm accidents

It does make me think how vulnerable farms, farmers and farm families are when it comes to the main person getting injured.

Accidents can happen in the blink of an eye and all of a sudden there’s no one there to do the work or feed the stock. People can be left in an awful situation overnight.

Thankfully I’m in the fortunate position of not being that badly injured, hopefully another week or two and I’ll be back to 100%.

Also, I have a wife who is willing and able, well defiantly able to keep things on track if I am out of action.

Many farm families are not so lucky. If the main farmer gets hurt, there may be no one to step into the breech and all of a sudden, the family can find itself without an income which obviously can have detrimental effects.

So, everyone and especially farmers who tend to think they are invincible, don’t take your personal health safety and wellbeing for granted, as the simplest of accidents or injuries can change things forever.

Gaining weight

Anyway, back to my 75% selection box problem! I dread to think how much weight I’ve put on over the past three weeks and I’m not even going to step onto the scales to find out.

Another few weeks I’ll be back down to normal, fingers crossed.

One thing however that hasn’t put on any weight over the past few weeks in my lambs.

Three weeks ago, I had picked out a batch of 35 that were almost at the desired weight and put them in a field beside the yard so that they would be easy to bring in again.

I brought them back in at the weekend hoping that at least half of them would be ready. To my disappointment I only got five. However, I’m not surprised either.

The snow and cold temperatures over the past week and wind and rain before that don’t make a great environment for lambs to thrive.

Anyway, temperatures will rise soon I hope the lambs will come fit eventually. Hopefully the price holds until then.

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