It was all change on more than just the weather front recently, because as Storm Darragh barrelled its way across the Atlantic, the in-calf heifers left here on 4 December to begin their working life as dairy cows.

In addition, the last of the younger cattle were housed during Darragh’s best endeavours, bringing an end to any vague hopes of a few cattle lying out ’till Christmas.

Sometimes the best plan is to know when you’re beaten and act accordingly. However, I continue to harbour a bit of a yearning for those exceptional years (remember those?) when store bullocks would stay outside until the middle of December before field conditions pointed firmly towards the slatted shed.

Wet start

It has been an unremarkable year for the cattle here. After an appallingly wet start to the grazing season, things improved steadily. Grass was never scarce, there was the occasional anxious wait for rain and the autumn turned into the land of plenty, with a whole-farm fertiliser application reaping dividends for autumn grass.

Most importantly, suitable weather (ie not too wet) meant utilisation was quite good and in reality, this is the most important factor in deciding when the winter begins.

Control

On the management side of things, strip-grazing the bigger cattle seemed to be the easiest way to control grass quality and at least half the summer involved using the electric wire.

Younger cattle were kept together and were run as a batch, while the male calves were separated out in late autumn.

The ramifications of last year’s TB outbreak at the dairy farm translated into a big reduction in female calves for us to rear, so I bought some of their bull calves to balance the numbers. So far they have been treated exactly the same as the heifer calves, and plans for next year will have to be elastic in nature, since I am sort of winging it regarding what happens next.

Whether or not I keep these young bullocks right through to beef (and maybe buy more), depends on how many females are coming in the spring and, ultimately, on the outcome of future TB tests.

I’m not going to back myself into a corner where I’m intending to sell young bullocks as stores, only to be restricted by a TB outbreak and have to keep too many for too long.

Therefore, I’ll operate a halfway house system, hedge my bets, fall between a rock and a hard place, and generally be governed by complete indecision. Is this familiar to anyone else? Dealing with TB is beyond a joke – it’s more of a never-ending nightmare.

Lungworm

Top of the agenda for herd health this season was, as always, lungworm control. Older animals were treated twice at grass and young stock rarely got beyond six weeks before a bit of coughing indicated it was time to reach again for the pour-on.

Although lungworm was probably not responsible, the calves have been coughing all through November and even now in December too. The vet tells me to make sure they’re eating at the trough, and not to listen so closely. Are they a bit like us, and just cough and bark a bit during all this changeable weather?

Vaccines have played their part in overall health too, especially with the dairy heifers. By the time they’re ready to leave here, I reckon they’ve been covered for every disease known to the bovine world.

Stress meter

On the Derek stress-o-meter side of things, a wee outbreak of an undiagnosed sickness among the bull calves (it didn’t seem to hit the heifers) shortly after arrival saw the needle jump off the scale for about three days. When I realised that none of them were going to die, the needle returned to normal.

Then a late summer excursion by 20 calves into a garden once again saw the gauge explode skywards. Only expert assistance by good neighbours stopped me having an on-the-spot heart attack.

Against that, the dawn shift of the electric fencer on a late September morning continues to epitomise everything that is wonderful about our chosen way of life.

So, all in all, I could do a lot worse than hope next year turns out to be more of the same.