From the Edge of Exmoor: February 2022

Oh boy, last post at the start of August? Where did all the time go? Life on the farm has fast-forwarded from summer to winter and into spring, although it’s been so warm recently, you’d be forgiven for thinking it was still September (and that, my dear friends, is going to be my excuse).

All of the sheep are down off of the hills and the cattle toasty in the barns. Lambing is scheduled to start on the 19^th of March, so we have a few weeks left to get our house in order. Our “round to it” list included putting in lots of stakes and fixing up wire in the various places that sheep (but mostly cattle) have wreaked havoc, replacing several gateposts and fixings, burning piles of hedge cuttings, and clearing out grass from around the bases of the new trees. Ewes will need pedicures, iodine drench and vaccinating before lambing, and while not quite the Hogwarts Sorting Hat, we do have to separate the girls into singles, doubles and triples to ensure they get an appropriate amount of food – we don’t want a triple underfed so she can’t grow her lambs properly, but equally we don’t want a single overfed so hers is huge and difficult to birth. There’s some cattle TB testing in there at some point too.

Back in October, Farmers Ian and Rob took the opportunity to visit Kat and her family in Sardinia, and I rather rashly said I’d look after both farms … after all, it was a quiet time of the year. I planned quite a nice routine:

Have a cuppa in bed, breakfast, then walk the dogs. Feed cattle hay/silage in the sheds. Take hay out to the bull and his harem in Sonnyside (avoiding being trampled in their excitement – daft Paddy actually got onto the back of the trailer one day to get the best bits). Check on the lower sheep, feeding lambs and the less impressive ewes, then up the hill to feed hay to the cattle in Raceground and check the sheep in Common, accompanied on the quad by one or other collie madly panting in my ear and rubbing mud up my back.

Dogs fed and locked in the utility room, jump into the Landrover and drive to the other farm. Say Hi to Sally and scrounge a cuppa. Feed three groups of calves in the shed, check on calves and ewes outside, feed the remainder of last year's lambs. Put out buckets of cake for Sally to feed the shed cattle in the evening so that I don’t have to come back later. Back to home farm via any shopping needed.

Lunch and an hour of pondering. More dog walking, more cattle feeding, and finally done.

Unless, of course, the cow that Farmer Ian said wouldn’t calve while he was away actually decides to calve. On day three, I noticed she was looking a bit pensive and investigated further … only to find a tell-tale dangly bit of goop hanging out. Liz and Bryan (Farmer Ian’s aunt and uncle) kindly offered to do the basics at the other farm, so I hung around waiting – fortunately able to sit with a cuppa in the living room and use the binoculars for remote checking. After about an hour, she was on her side straining, and I went over on the quad to have a closer look. Not quite sure about her temperament, I approached cautiously and started to pull on the two legs poking out (nicely presented, thank goodness). After much heaving on both of our parts (see seemed happy with the first aid being given), the head was not coming free, so I took the executive decision to push my arm up her bum (sorry anyone who is squeamish … I did clean under my nails afterwards) and push with one hand from inside as well as tug from outside. That did the trick (and it’s Ann’s trick … for lambs, equally useful for cattle it appears, albeit a whole hand instead of a finger). Head and front legs out, there was no time to waste to get the chest free and enable the calf to start breathing. That achieved, we both had a bit of a breather before the final heave and hips, rear legs, and done. She’s a lovely heifer calf. I phoned Sardinia to give the news, high as a kite on adrenalin.

As the weather was dreadful, I loaded the calf into the trailer and we drove slowly to the sheds, mum in tow lowing uneasily, and got everyone settled in a nice warm strawed corner, which was just as well as the youngster took a couple of days to get into the swing of udder = dinner, and I ended up tubing her with colostrum and milk until she got going.

I hope to do more frequent updates, especially as we are now spending more time on the computer trying to get our heads around what we have to do to fulfil our Sustainable Farming Incentive Pilot activities … no doubt more on that later as we start soil testing, fencing off wildlife areas, and measuring dead wood in the woodlands.