Everything on the farm should be pregnant!!!!

According to my husband, ALL the females on this farm should be pregnant EXCEPT the wife, the daughter and the dog!  And so it be. 

We're "AI"ing cows every day this month, using sexed semen for the Ayrshire's and  hopefully, if they hold they'll be lots of baby heifer calves born next April.  Mulberry, our Ayrshire bull, is still living with 115 ladies, who should be in calf but if in three weeks time they come bulling again, Mulberry should pick them up and serve them "naturally".  Notice how many times I mention "should"!  We're dealing with mother nature here and life sometimes has a different idea.  Will keep you posted as time goes by.

New additions to the farm.  Our hen hut is now occupied with 6 pullet White Leghorn hens.  Harry has done a deal with cousin Ben who's into poultry, and we've been to fetch them today.  I wonder how long before Mr Fox comes to visit? Grandma Barbara loves hens and was delighted with them.  Good, as she might be asked to do alot of "shutting up the hens" especially when Harry goes back to school.

Another new arrival was a new heifer calf born this morning to a home bred heifer cow.  It was her first and they are doing really well.  I've just been out to the barn this evening and stood quietly watching the calf dancing and skipping around the shed whilst mum stood still and watched!  How quickly calves find there feet and run about, just a matter of hours.

At last Summer has arrived over the weekend, and we're all doing the lawns and weeding the over due flower beds.  As we try to sleep with the bedroom windows open, I hear the familiar and constant "mooing" of Doreen, No. 71, who's been separated from her baby today and gone to live with the milking herd.  I apologise now to all our neighbours around this side of the village, who might also be trying to get to sleep!  Don't worry, it won't last more than a couple of nights, and Doreen will have forgotten who she's left in the barn.

Finally, daughter Charlotte (who was named after a cow no less) has started full time work today.  She came home very invigorated and so grown up!  To celebrate, she's taken Harry and herself to the cinema to see the new Batman film.  Now I feel very middle aged as I've had my birthday over the weekend too.

Ohh humbug!

A Happy Husband!

Every Tuesday there's a Cattle Market in Melton and Mark's just come home from taking 6 gorgeous four week old Limousin calves to sell.   They sold well - and six more to go either next Tuesday or the week after.  We sell all the beef calves and only keep the Ayrshire heifer calves for rearing and after two years they become milking cows!

Another reason to be happy is we're drilling for water and found it only 15 foot down!  There's always water on top of a hill - "Jack and Jill went up a hill to fetch a pale of water!"  The plan is to use the borehole water to fill all our cattle troughs throughout the farm.  Thus making a big saving on our water usage and bill!

We're waiting for the first Hereford calves to be born, but as yet, not one has emerged.  Last night an Ayrshire cow No. 71 otherwise known as Doreen,  has produced her second calf and guess what, it was a Limousin again.  Obviously Diesel (the Limi bull) was keener than Ferdinand (the Hereford).  Doreen produced over 8000lts of milk in her first lactation so a very special (cash) cow!

The weather - although wet again yesterday - is forcast for a dryer weekend for the East Midlands.  Boy we need a break!  Harry is filling our tanker of dirty water twice a day to keep on top of keeping it off our yard, like a great big dirty shallow lake.  Harry's been a great help since home from school.  It's costing me though!

As I said, I've got a very happy husband today - makes a change!

Another Wet Friday!!

Just looking at the rain gauge, 25ml (1in) of the wet stuff has fallen on saturated land again today.  At the beginning of milking tonight, there was a "river flow" of rainwater streaming through one doorway to the next!  Sadly, the cows had to walked up the track back to the sodden fields, to munch yet more soggy grass!  How would you like to eat soggy limp lettuce everyday?  Milk yields are dropping!  Come on Almighty God, stop this rain and give us a break!

If it's not the rain, it's the milk price crisis.  NFU and related organisations are working extremely hard to get all us dairy farmers to work together to lobby, protest, shout and scream as much as possible about this crisis in British dairy industry.  Even if the general public wants and is able to pay a bit more for every carton of milk at the supermarkets, how does that extra few pence reach us?  There's always a middle man (processor) who have to take their cut too.  Supermarkets are powerful and there's alot of them.  Processors are squealing too but seem to be happy to pass on the cost down to us who have no one to pass it on to.

One idea is to shoot cows on mass (a few from each dairy farm) which would solve the problem of tipping milk down the drain (illegal as it's a pollutant) and cows are worth more made into beefburgers than producers of milk!  Shocking it would be, but if farmers can't afford to keep them/feed them extra (because of  the wet summer) how else are we going to keep afloat? (no pun intended).  If you want to help us, lobby your MP, write letters to local newspapers, keep talking about it and help to keep this ball rolling to roll further and longer!

Another eventful week ends.   Our EMT broadcast was shown throughout Wednesdays bulletins which coincided with the SOS Dairy Summit in London.  Both myself and Mark had soundbites aired - about the weather mainly - but how we could have got a much better point across about milk price!

BBC East Midlands Today filming on our farm!

Fascinately afternoon's milking, we had a visitor in the parlour.  Tom Brown from the BBC East Midlands Today team,  visit our farm this afternoon, filming Mark and Harry milking our cows, doing a piece for EMT Breakfast bulletins tomorrow!  It's all about the wet weather affecting the cows, muddy gateways, lack of grazing pasture and the knock-on effect for our winter fodder.  As you know, with all this wet weather no hay has been made yet, and what silage we managed to get into the clamp is very wet stuff and low feed value, which means buying in extra dry feed during this winter is a cost we are not in a position to afford.

On another note, Tom had heard about our QR coded cow, and wants to do another piece on that later in the year.  Meanwhile, Mark and Harry are off to the Dairy Crisis Summit at Westminster tomorrow to be among the 2000 plus dairy farmers protesting against the latest price cuts for milk due to come into effect on 1st August.  Unfortunately I've got a school visit to our farm tomorrow, so unable to go to London.

He interviewed me and Mark separately so lets see who makes it on the film and which of us is left on the cutting room floor!

It's Friday and ahrrrrrrrrrrrr.............raining AGAIN!

So cross this morning, raining again, everywhere on the farm is flooding.  Cows hate going out into the driving rain, through those very bottomless gateways!  They will stand under the nearest hedge all day, not grazing!   Whoever think its unhealthy to keep cows inside 24/7 all year round ought to come to our farm today and try working in it and fetch those cows in.   At least if they were inside, they'd be eating fodder and have clean teats.   If they don't graze, they don't eat enough grass to produce milk for the next milking, so less yield and therefore less milk!   Milking takes longer as their teats will be muddy as the drag along through the sinking muddy gateways, so Mark has to wash and wipe every teat prior to putting the unit on.

It's Friday and that means Farmers Weekly day.  Reading it over breakfast this morning was very depressing.  An emergency meeting with dairy producers was held this week in Stafford as another round of milk price cuts hits us all hard again!  For us, it means we are being paid 27p per litre but due to have another price cut next month - not heard what it is yet.  Experts say it costs us 29p per litre to produce!  Another worry!  No wonder Mark and I are turning grey by the day. 

All I want to do is SCREEM at the Supermarkets, who sell milk cheaper than they buy it, cos they can afford to do that and they know its what brings people through their doors to shop.  Why don't they understand how hard its hitting us?  When people ask me what they can do, try to buy British produce wherever possible and don't buy if you're not sure as the Supermarkets only put on the shelves what is selling.  So don't buy imported food!!!

On a lighter note, Harry is back tomorrow from his boarding school in Somerset.  It will be great having another pair of hands on the farm as Marks' parents are away at the moment and we've alot of calves to feed and carrying the milk is heavy on me.  Harry was camping in the Quantock Hills last night as part of  D of  E.  Hope he didn't get washed away down the hills.  Charlotte has gone to London to prepare for her volunteering job at the Olympics.  She travelled alone on the 6am train and making her way to Leicester Square!  She's so grown up now.  It's her 18th next week!

Wet, Wet, Wet!!

Can it get any wetter?  This morning felt like the middle of winter, slush, muck, slurry, water, puddles, sticky gateways and dirty cows!  I felt sorry for the little baby calf born last night in the field to a wet and windy welcome.  Unfortunately it was a bull Ayrshire calf, very nice one, but a male so very disappointed.  Its mother is a very nice animal and it was her first calf so well done to her.  She'll be milked tomorrow as a first time through the parlour.

Talking of calves, we've 12 to feed manually twice a day at the moment, drinking 2 litres each, thats a lot of milk to carry from the parlour to the calf shed.  I feel like a real milk maid carrying my two very full buckets across the yard trying not to spill any.

Daughter has now finished A level exams and is at home alot.  So I've got her doing housework and cooking as I'm outside such a lot helping Mark.  She's waiting for the go ahead to start working full time with a Travel Agent who she's been doing work experience for since February.  Then she's got a shift at our local pub tonight too.

Our son Harry finishes school this Saturday, so home for the summer holidays.  My parents are fetching him for us.  Its Marks 50th birthday this Saturday too!  A milestone for him, but no party as we're flat out on the farm!  Some summer this is turning out to be.

Got to go outside again now and its not raining at the moment. 

Jumping cow has calved today!

 Good News!  Flaming July in the wind and rain, No. 161 who was trying to jump a gate  (see previous blog) has calved today outside at 3.45pm.  Proud mother and baby heifer (female) are now inside a cosy barn to bond, dry off and drink all that lovely colostrum baby calves need within the first few hours of birth.  Mum and baby will stay together until Wednesday, when No. 161 will be milked with the milking herd through the parlour and baby calf will join the others in the expanding nursery barn.  Then its up to muggins here to feed her twice a day, two litres morning and night!

Now this sounds easy, but for the first few days, we have to get into the pen with a over-large bottle with a 10cm rubber teat and man handle them to drink!

We've given No. 161 a bottle of calcium through a needle under the skin, to keep her from getting milk fever, as some older cows may suffer from straight after calving. 

All this in front of todays visiting group of 20 members of Bingham U3A Amblers walking group braving the weather and were very appropriately clothed.  How exciting for them!  My first on farm calving in front of visitors.  No. 161 didn't mind as she's had 5 other calves before so its nothing new to her!

Cow & Gate!

Jumping Cows on Southfields Farm

This cow was trying to get back to her friends!  She's heavily in calf and due any day soon, so Mark was moving her closer to our farm buildings but she had a different idea!

All was well though, as we lifted her off with the loader tractor.  She hadn't even broken the wooden gate.

Will let you know when she calves!