New Calf

On a thoroughly more positive note, another Moile calf was born (Derrynagarra Edward) and as you can see from the following photos, he is a lovely bright active calf!

Having his ears washed

His mother (0001) was the first Irish Moiled calf born on this farm.

Bad things seem to happen in threes

We wondered whether to include some of the more depressing aspects of farming on this blog, and then decided it would a bit unrealistic not to.

We have had a run of bad luck recently:

We were expecting another foal this year. The mare started to foal, but it soon became apparent that events were not progressing quickly enough and by the time she finally foaled with considerable veterinary assistance her filly foal was born dead.It was the mare’s first foal, and while it took about a week for her to recover from the physical ordeal, she didn’t really know what happened and so did not miss the foal.She has now recovered and is out grazing peacefully with the others.

That same weekend one of our Moiled cows gave birth to a dead calf. Calving progressed normally, and she is a very experienced cow so there was no obvious reason which is frustrating. The calf was full term and born bang on it’s due date.This cow has had a lot of calves, she knew exactly what had happened and would not leave the calf.

Each morning I would open the door of the shed and leave it open all day. She would have one or two mouthfuls of grass and then go back to sit with her calf.On the third morning she got up, had one last look back at her calf, and walked off to join the rest of the herd. She too has recovered and is out grazing peacefully in the sunshine.

The following weekend having hatched 10 chicks…..

….our broody hen and her chicks disappeared. We think the fox must have taken them, but there were no tell tale feathers strewn around, just no hen and no chicks.

There is an expression in farming which says that ‘where you have livestock you will have deadstock’. This sounds a bit callous but it is more a way of pointing that, even with the best will in the world, these things do happen and some things are beyond our control.

New Recommendation for Lough Bishop House

Exciting news on the Bed and Breakfast front!
Following a successful recent independent assessment, a recommendation for our house has now gone up on the Georgina Campbell website.

Follow the link and see what she has to say about us!

Hens

We keep some free range organic hens which produce eggs for ourselves, the Bed & Breakfast and some for sale. We always have a glut of eggs in the summer, and just about enough in the winter when we might manage one or two eggs per day.
Egg laying is governed by day length. As the days get longer egg numbers increase, and as they get shorter egg numbers drop.
As the days get longer, hen thoughts also turn to producing chicks and one or two hens will go broody.
When they go broody nothing will get them off their eggs and they can get very defensive. We found this one tucked in tight under the drinker, when I was mucking out the cattle shed. Tractor and loader working in the shed right up to her never disturbed her.

They usually sit absolutely motionless, only getting up very occasionally for a drink etc. They are so motionless that on another photo like this one I used a 3 second shutter speed and the only blurred area is her eyes as she blinked!

Lambing almost over!

Just 12 stragglers remain. Actually make that 11 as one is lambing as I write!

We have been extremely fortunate with the weather, just 2 or 3 wet days at the the beginning then dry for the remainder, and at long last the grass has started to grow.

Quad bike and trailer, essential kit for lambing!

The trailer can carry 4 ewes. Their lambs go in the front section so they don't get squashed.

Then it's off out to the field.

They have quite a nice view!