Dark Peak Wedding Present

13th Dec- Excellent news on the fertility front. We had the vet to pregnancy test 27 cows on the 26th Nov and 26 were in calf which is a brilliant result. She couldn't come to Pd the heifers until yesterday so they had to stay outside until then. I felt very sorry for them in all that wet and windy weather and they were very glad to be coming in at last. Included in the 27 heifers that we had to Pd were the 8 heifers that Fernando was with during summer; this was going to be a test of his fertility. Once again brilliant results with 26 heifers being in calf. Fernando only missed 1 which is a very good result and as she is still only a youngster we will keep her until 2012 and try again next year to get her pregnant.

So the sheds are very full. One shed has 34 "bulling heifers" in it which include Grinah (93) and Barrow (90) who are now very strong heifers indeed. These heifers we will "bull" in spring/ summer 2012 and calve in 2013 getting our numbers back up to 80ish. This shed also has 6 cows and calves which were born in late autumn.

The other shed has 52 in calf cows and heifers due February to May 2012 and Fernando (who wishes he was in the "other" shed. Not till next year lad!!!). Since we have so many cows / heifers to calve we will need the new shed we have been putting up this year to move some into once they have calved. We know from experience that if we have more than 40 in this shed after calving we just have a lot of problems with calf pneumonia / scours etc.

We also have 12 Limousin heifer calves who are 4 months old who will grow up to be heifer replacements for 2013/14. Its a long process in farming...

9th Oct - Fernando has been grazing a field with five pregnant cows and then in August we put 8 young heifers (who are 18 months old) in with them. They "ran together" for two months then we took the heifers out of the field. This is so they will only calve in April and May next year.

Fernando then had to be separated from the pregnant cows as they were calving and we also did not want them served again. He was very upset about being put in a stable on his own - not surprising as he won't have ever have been on his own before. Steve had made a reinforced door and we were glad of it. After a few days he settled down and now only complains if we are late with his breakfast or tea! Once we bring some more pregnant cows inside we will put him in the big shed with them which he will prefer.

8th Sept 2011 - Grinah and Barrow have been grazing the same field all summer. Initially they had plenty of grass but as the dry summer wore on they had eaten it all by mid August. In early Sept we sperated the group - there was 44 in total into larger quiet heifers (which include G&B) who were split into two groups of 10 and put on new fields away from the farm. The other heifers and "stores" that we will sell are now grazing a field by the farm. We took the opportunity to worm all the heifers against lungworm which is always prevalent in young stock.

28th June 2011 - Last week we went to Pendle and bought a young 15 month old bull off a farm. He is currently inside with three fat pregnant cows for company. We have vaccinated him against BVD and also want to get his feet trimmed. Then he will be able to go out in a field where we have 8 heifers for him that are also 15 months old. He is a pedigree Limousin but unregistered. In accordance with naming rules - ie that each year is given a letter and all stock born in that year is named starting with that letter. The letter for 2010 is "F". We quickly dismissed Fred and Frank as names and have come up with Fernando which suits him very well. He will be put with Grinah and Barrow next spring.

Here he is posing and sniffing bottoms...

5th May 2011 - Today we gave the 22 heifers their second vaccination injection and turned them outside. They look well and are very happy to be outside. We haven't had the results of the BVD tests back yet but don't think either Grinah or Barrow are PI's. We took one out of their group - No 42 who is about a foot smaller than everyone else - it will be interesting to see whether she is a PI or just a runt out of a Welsh Black or something similar.

We have also bought a new bull as unfortunately Adam had to go for slaughter as out of 30 cows he only got 15 pregnant. The new bull is an old hand and hasn't a name. He came from a local farm and we've put him with the older cows as he's quite well grown big being 8 years old!

15th April 2011 - As we have been having fertility problems with the cows we are testing for Bovine Viral Diarrhoea and vaccinating against it. So we have had two days of testing to do - about 50 animals each day. We have designed a new cattle handling yard and built it over the last 3 weeks so this was its first use. As you can see they are much bigger now. We also replaced the number 90 eartag in Barrow's ear so that we can tell her from all the other black ones in the group.

The vets take the blood from the base of the tail. We will find out in a couple of weeks whether we have any Persistent Infectors (PI's) and those we will have to get rid of as they carry and spread the virus all their life.

10th April 2011 - not a lot happened over winter. The calves water froze up in the cold spell and we had to carry water from the house (or rather Jim did as we were in Colombia). They have grown and Barrow has lost her number (90).

25th November - the calves have grown a lot and are now eating proper "cow" food called silage. As all 11 of these calves are Limousin we were looking for some Aberdeen Angus to put in with them. We went to see some that were advertised but when we got there they were 6 to 8 months old and so quite a bit bigger than ours. After much deliberation (as you can't really mix age groups) we bought them. A week later 10 were delivered and have been outside in all the horrid wet, windy weather while we worked like mad to "make" room for them.

Our solution was to move the 11 Limousin calves (incl DPFR ones) into a makeshift pen (it was used by Moxons whitelining to store their paints) .....

And then this Monday (22nd Nov) we were able to bring the AA heifers inside where they are happily dry, warm and have plenty of food. We allocated them new "blue tags" which will be their name for life at Liley Hall Farm!

20th August - we have weaned all the calves off the milk so now they are all together in one pen and on 1kg Calf Weaning Pellets per calf /day (basically half a 25kg bag poured into a long trough). Grinah is the biggest while Barrow is an average size but still friendlier. The smallest of the lot is no 42 who wouldn't drink her milk from the day we bought her and so after a week of getting milk everywhere we weaned her early. She always manages to push into the middle of the trough though and so we're hopeful that she might catch up.

26th July 2010 - Not a lot to report. We have chosen Grinah and Barrow as names. Grinah is the light brown one who is slightly bigger but not as friendly. Barrow is the dark brown friendly one. We are recording how much calf ration they eat morning and night and when they are eating 2kg per day (between them) we can wean them off milk. At the moment they vary between 1 to 1.5kg/day.

14th July 2010 - Names so far   Grinah and Barrow, Abbey and Lady, Kinder and Bleaklow, Floozy Suzi and Flirty Gerty, Heather and Sunshine. Then I thought of Whisky and Sloe Gin

Disbudding done....

8th July 2010 - Both calves are doing well. Drinking their milk twice a day and eating a bit of hay and solid food. This week the task is to disbud them (ie remove their horn buds) - not pleasant but does mean they won't grow horns with which to use on each other and us!

5th July 2010 - Its a year since we were given the wedding present by our DPFR friends of funds to buy ourselves a new bull. But as we already have a perfectly good one (Adam) we planned to get him a couple more girlfriends (heifers) instead. Last year we missed the boat mainly due to organising the wedding - by August all the calves had gone.

Today we have purchased two heifer Limousin calves. Three weeks old and need names.....

Suggestions coming in are Grinah and Barrow, Abbey and Lady, Kinder and Bleaklow.