Farmer Writes: the best laid plans and the last calf of 2019

It’s that dreary, dark time of the year again when every farmer is counting down the days to when we all notice the stretch coming in the evenings. Though with so many twinkly lights and glowing trees lighting up the countryside, it’s cheerful enough in a different way.

I had even considered giving the slatted shed some lights, but the cows are currently on the naughty list as they pulled the shed radio down and smashed it into smithereens.

Whatever came on the radio to annoy them, I’ll never know, though I have my suspicions it could have been the mart report on Shannonside. Well it was either that or the indignity we put them through after getting the herd scanned for the first time ever.

Following our bewildering trio of twins last year, we bit the bullet and decided to try scanning, both to have an idea of what to expect and to see if we had any more doubles arriving.

After a quick wardrobe change and waving everyone else off, my father and I rolled up our sleeves and without much hassle, delivered a fine heifer

We could not scan all the cows as some were too far along in-calf but what we could check has told us to expect six bulls and three heifers. Forewarned is forearmed, but it does slightly take the guesswork out of the equation, which always adds to the excitement of calving time.

It certainly would have helped us worry less about our last cow to calve, the rather rotund girl we thought could have a fourth set of twins.

The only thing we didn’t want her to do was calve on a day we had Americans visiting and a family meal booked for everyone in a local restaurant. But what do we always know cows like to do? Spoil pre-made plans!

I tottered down to the shed in my high heels and good clothes for a final check on her before leaving for the evening, only to find two little feet pointing at me.

After a quick wardrobe change and waving everyone else off, my father and I rolled up our sleeves and without much hassle, delivered a fine heifer. Thus ended our calving for 2019. But it’s only three months until we begin again, which we all know will fly by.

We were toying with the idea of wintering a few lighter weanlings and hoping for an uplift in prices next January.

The main issue we had was space as we had to move the cow and newborn calf back onto the slats. No matter how we switched around the weanlings and cows on paper, there was always an issue with either the heifers getting too much feeding, the bulls too little, or the young calf getting bullied.

A decision was made to bring three to the mart and see how we got on, bringing them home if we weren’t happy. Our plans were almost scuppered when the calves got a virus the week we intended to bring them, which delayed our selling for two weeks until we were sure they were over it.

We didn’t achieve quite the highs of earlier sales, though as these were our weakest calves, it was to be expected. The Belgian Blue trio of two bulls and a freemartin heifer still averaged 280kg between them, at €2.53/kg.

Hassle

Feeding over the winter and the hassle of labour which would come with them meant we were happy enough to take what was offered.

This leaves us with one pedigree bull for halter training and two heifers we’ve selected for breeding, along with the mischievous newborn last calf of 2019 who’s sure to keep us on our toes.

To finish, we’d like to take this opportunity to wish everyone a prosperous year in 2020.

We’ve enjoyed sharing our highs, lows and misadventures with each and every one of you.