Vegas Nini

Despite probably being a strange name for a calf, “Vegas Nini” it is. The “Nini” is short for Janine and comes from my friend Janine Pierce who came up with the name. As it happens, it was one of my favourite names, so I am quite chuffed about it...it was the clear favourite by a long way. The final scores were as follows:

Vegas  - 22 votes

Vivian – 7 votes

Vivaldi – 4 votes

Vulcan – 1 vote

Valhala – 1 vote

Valutus – 0 votes

Other news...well, there isn’t much. We continue to spread the odd bit of muck around and take the heads of thistles and weeds with the topper (mower) before they start seeding. Beyond that, its all about having a good “trim” in general and making sure the hedgerows aren’t encroaching on the fields too much. (My innuendo alarm is ringing at this point – I’m sure there’s something I could say here!?!). Repairs are also key, and I am setting about maintaining all of the feeding racks in the yards in time for winter.

Apart from making sure we spread every conceivable piece of cowsh*t over the fields, the next major project will be that of re-seeding our largest silage field, “Peans”. This is a total of about 17 acres, which is quite big and scary when you consider the cost of a protein-rich rye grass seed mix plus the time and effort. We’ll do this the old fashioned way and churn up the ground a bit with the chain harrow and then spread the seed with an old fertiliser spreader - then give it a light roll afterwards. Frankly, we just don’t have the means to do it any other way in terms of equipment or cash!

Whilst I am reluctant to change things too much on the farm there are a few tweaks I have made. The old man had, in general, done things very efficiently over the years, however with the focus on generating a reputation for excellent beef I have decided to neuter all of our male calves in order to naturally produce a larger carcass almost wholly on grass, over a longer period of time. This approach should produce more flavour and reduce input costs in terms of supplementing feed with a cereal mix, (bloody expensive right now!). In addition, it is more ethical and essentially allows the animals to feed on their natural diet. Leaving them until they are at least 20 months means our cashflow will be under pressure, but once we catch our tail up it means all animals will be sold for beef at an older age with the improved eating traits that go along with this.

Finally, because I know how much of you like photos, here’s some photos of the chicks in their new des-res, oh, and of course my cock!

Name That Calf...

I woke up in a hotel room, confused and in Wiltshire on Saturday morning. I’d booked a hotel for Katie and I in the historic little village of Lacock. We arrived late afternoon on Friday after spending most of the day on the M25 and went for a stroll around the local pubs and had dinner and too much vino before tripping up the creaking 700 year old stairs to bed...thus waking up a bit hungover and not quite sure of where I was.

Lacock is a beautiful spot not far from Stonehenge and quite near the Somerset border. Its sometimes difficult to see evidence of being in the 21st Century when your in one of the old streets; stone walls and roofs and beams everywhere. I highly recommend staying in The Sign of The Angel http://www.lacock.co.uk/ where the rooms, welcome and food are all excellent. I’m not saying this for any commercial reasons and they don’t even know I’m giving them a mention here, it just happened to be a faultless stay and the food was fantastic - just a good tip for anybody wanting a romantic getaway. The beer around there is good too as Wadsworth Brewery in Devizes is only 9 miles away.

Anyway, I thought I’d phone my mother and check on the farm on Saturday morning and lo and behold our final calf (male) had just been born. The mother, Louise, was aware I was going away and clearly chose to give birth while I wasn’t around as a form of revenge for me telling her to bloody hurry up the week before and calling her a fat old knacker! Clever things cows.

So, we have a calf to name. Or YOU do, as I am inviting suggestions for names which must begin with the letter “V”. We go through the alphabet by year, like car number plates used to be in the days before Chavs and ASBOS and when kids were taught to spell and string a sentence together in schools which weren’t afraid to exercise a modicum of discipline and before corruption, left-wing idealism and bureaucracy hadn’t destroyed everything that was once good about Britain. (By the way, I refuse to accept accusations that this blog is anything other than a farming blog – I just digress occasionally).

This year all calves therefore need to be V reg as such. We have already had 8 bull calves this year and so the following names have already been taken, so don’t suggest any of these:

Vincent, Vladimir, Vesuvius, Vaughn, Vernon, Viognier, Velasquez and Valkyrie

Other than the above, feel free to attach your names to the blog. All serious suggestions will be considered (no Va-Va-Vooms or Viagras please) and I’ll choose the winner on or about the 15^th of August. The winner will also get their own name as the second name as in “Verbose Jeremy” for example.

Here’s a picture of the little chap!

Beefing up...

The developed world is consuming more beef. Asian countries (China, Japan and South Korea in particular) seem to be leading this due to economic growth and an increase in affluence - some Middle Eastern markets have also started to chow on cow a bit more than before. Asia, in particular tends to look towards it’s most immediate neighbours for any additional supply and more meat produce than ever is finding its way to these growing markets from Australia and New Zealand via nearby Indonesia.

Couple this with the current Euro/Sterling rate being approximately 1.12 and you can see why beef exports to Europe from the UK are also on the rise. Meat has never been more available to, or affordable for so many people and whichever way you look at it this means more cattle are being eaten and therefore more cattle need to be reared to meet the demand.

So, beef prices in the UK are on the up as a result showing an increase of about 7.5% over the last year for prime finished animals. The trade for animals older than 30 months has seen even greater rises. (More on this another day). This is obviously good news for native beef farmers and goes some way towards mitigating the increase in farm running costs over the year; fuel, feed, straw etc. In theory, there should be a reduction in certain feed costs in the near future due to a bumper crop of Russian wheat hitting the market a few weeks ago but it remains to be seen as to how or when this will be passed on to farmers.

Ending this segment on an even higher note and pertinent to all of this is the fact that we sent a barren cow off to Ashford market on Tuesday to go in the OTM (Over Thirty Month) beef sale. We got our highest ever price for such a beast. She was 7 years old and had given us 4 healthy calves up until this year and the buyer didn’t get much change out of a grand. Cheers Nora!

Making the cut

We finally cut our silage on the 14^th July. Luckily, this was just before our most recent massive downpour which could have screwed the crop if we were a day or so late. We normally cut it three or four weeks earlier around mid June but due to the very dry spring we left it longer. This can be tricky, as you need to cut with the optimum level of nutrients still in the grass and with sufficient moisture to allow the grass to essentially pickle itself into silage. We will see how this pans out...fingers crossed. Anyway, we got 24 more bales than last year, partly due to cutting it a bit lower and partly due to leaving it to grow after the rainy spell. We have a total of 284 bales as well as some recently acquired barley straw and pea-hay I acquired for mixing in here and there to stretch the main feed a bit. We also have 6 bales of silage I bought from my neighbour to tide me over until this year’s crop “goes off”. (You need to leave silage alone in the bags for at least 6 weeks before it is safe to feed). Grass growth is slow at this time of year compared to spring and so we have to rotate the grazing carefully to tide us over until the grass grows back in the silage fields we have just cut.

On another note, we have already started muck-spreading. Believe it or not, this is one of my favourite times of the year. The farm air has an even healthier tang of rotting cow sh*t about it than usual, particularly on fresh dewy mornings. We always spread in late summer - it signals that we are a certain way through the farming year and I find myself reflecting on what has been achieved; a fairly harsh winter was dealt with, calves have been born and are growing well, silage has been cut and bagged and we still have a few more months of grazing where the animals get the chance to roam and chew to their hearts content against the backdrop of our beautiful countryside. Its a time to relax a bit and take stock, much like everybody else at this time of year- happy holidays everyone!

P.S. Does Robin the bull look slightly Chinese in this picture, or what?

Midsummer murmurs...

I’ve met a lot of experts recently. In fact I didn’t quite realise how many there were out there. They are actually very easy to find if you know how to look and all you have to do is tempt them in like blundering, eager wasps squabbling their way into a beer trap. To get the best results you should always get your expression right. You can perfect this by practising in the mirror and trying your utmost to narrow your eyes whilst quizzically furrowing your brow and getting the right mix of naivety and stupidity across the rest of your face – something that apparently comes naturally to me. This is like the ground bait strewn across the water to get the fish interested before you catapult your hook, line, and yes, “sinker” out into the water by rather coyly saying “What do you think I should do?”

In my particular case I have been discussing my silage strategy and how to get the most out of my poorly grass with some local self appointed peers. The thing is, I already know that growth has slowed despite the rain.  I know that I could throw fertiliser at it (massively expensive and not in line with my eco approach) and I know that if I sold, or more like, gave away some animals (at today’s prices), I would not need so much grass. What I wanted was a shrewd and intelligent solution. What I got was a collection of conflicting and costly confusions. The trouble is I am quite new to this...but not that new and I find that the more green you might appear, the more useless the advice. Its as if there is a multi-tiered system whereby you have to qualify for the reliability of the wisdom you are about to receive. Moreover, advice-givers seem to have the ability to suggest spending more money than they ever would do in the same situation...this seems to be on a sliding scale as to green-ness too and its not just limited to farming. Try it out for a bit of sport in whichever chosen field you wish, it will help you ascertain who not to stand next to in the pub. Finally, anybody who begins their smug and often loudly, slow spoken snippet of wisdom with “My advice to you is...” is really saying “Now, prepare to glaze over and ignore what I am saying because its about as useful to you as the contents of a train lavatory”. 

I did listen to one bit of guidance from someone who does not outwardly appear to be an expert, but someone who knows a great deal about life and people. He reminded me of the “P” word we either forget about or struggle to put into use. Patience.  He told me to look at the grass, look at the cows and hold off cutting for as long as possible, because however slow the grass maybe growing, its still growing. This is what both my, and many of your instincts would tell you to do anyway, and is probably how we judge good advice, ie, the advice closest to what we thought of in the first place!

Finally, I know I am a child and find innuendo funnier than most but here’s the picture of my cock (his name is Colonel Sanders, by the way!) you have all been waiting for. So thanks to Karen Steadman and her daughter Vicky (who truly loved this handsome boy) I have a cockerel with which to breed from...I also took in his girlfriend (Ruby) too. I had to take him off their hands due to their new neighbour obsessively complaining about his crowing. They even wrote to the Telegraph to whinge about it and repeatedly phoned me to get it off their hands – nice neighbours, eh? They’re certainly going about making friends in a little village in the right fashion! 

Loony Toons...

The world has changed! It has become more hip without us either realising or wishing to acknowledge it. We have done so much “thinking outside of the box” in recent years that thinking inside of the box for a change is considered quite radical and being conventional can be considered almost eccentric. Think of a young gent in a three piece suit and bowler hat, toying with his watch chain, flabbergasted that he couldn’t find moustache wax in the pharmacy section of Morrisons. You’d think he was a total nutter who probably also had an unhealthy affection for steam locomotives and a worrying collection of stamps and old tram tickets. A hundred years ago this would have been considered normal. I blame the Guardian.

What has this got to do with anything...or farming? Well, a bit, at a push. I’m trying to justify the reason for putting a video of the pigs on the blog in order to amuse you because other than some petite, sexily clad young girls “climbing over my machinery” (pictures on Facebook) there hasn’t been a great deal going on this week.

So, the point I wish to make here is how things change and that how strange, yet credible it is to quote a cartoon character to justify my blog activity (all will become clear, honest!). This would have been impossible a few years ago, not only for the non-existence of blogs but also because cartoons were made to do no more than occupy kids. Think about it. You could glean nothing sensible from Mickey Mouse’s first film, Steamboat Willy, other than the fact that some clever sod had drawn some pictures of a mouse on a boat and joined them all up to create the illusion of movement.

In my case, I am referring to an old episode of Southpark, and if you still think things haven’t changed that much, consider that cartoons like this are not only factual and intelligent but also some of the only peddlers of truth and insight on the planet. (I’d like to say Southpark translates globally across languages and cultures but I’m afraid it doesn’t. In Spanish, they translated the opening song from the film from “Shut your f*cking face uncle-f*cker” to “You’re an arsehole son of a bitch”, not quite the same, I think you’ll agree!) They also do what the press can’t do in quite the same way and relentlessly attack politicians, celebrities and bully-boy corporations. Quite a few modern cartoons; Family Guy, Stressed Eric, The Simpsons, educate people by tackling family life, morals, philosophy and politics and stand half a chance of subliminally relaying it to hapless Americans without all of the sickly syrup and piousness of Little House on the Prairie or The Cosby Show. Can't be a bad thing. In this case, the cartoon character is Kyle (I think) and he is sad about the fact that the masses would rather watch tv programmes with close-ups of animals with accompanying silly music than something educational or informative. Just to be “radical” there is no silly music in the below vid. (I actually haven’t worked out how to dub videos yet – any assistance welcomed here!).

By the way, Steamboat Willy was made in 1928 and essentially featured an animal with accompanying silly music. Maybe we haven’t changed at all.

Weather-wise, we have had, and continue to be having, some serious rain. I’m not sure whether this means that we will get the silage cut we need, however, without rain we probably would not have bothered cutting at all. I’m estimating getting the contractors in for the first week of July but will monitor growth and rainfall daily. Trouble is, as the new shoots of grass grow, the bunnies get straight on it – you can see the cuts along the shoots made by razor sharp teeth and the general slow progress of grass regeneration. In some fields its really bad. Funnily enough, the solution makes me think of yet another cartoon!

Pigs named during kitchen incident...

I hesitated at the point of electing to use the word “stoic” whilst typing the last blog because I’m always aware of when I might be tempting fate. Its a sort of superstition thing except you can’t avoid it like a ladder or salute it and therefore make things ok because you’ve already done it, said it, or typed it in this case.

So, perhaps as a result of my choice of vocabulary last week that following the spectacular pig naming extravaganza the extremely charming, domesticated and now famous Penelope was eaten by a fox! This is not uncommon. It is in fact, more common than ever because foxes are essentially a semi-protected species. You can even buy fox food in pet shops. You can guess my attitude to fox hunting. You can probably guess what I might feel about a nationwide cull too. Poor old Penelope, my favourite ever hen.

So despite some bushy-tailed, mange-riddled, vulpine murderer eating my favourite bird we finally managed to get the pigs named...and what fantastic names they are too (not). See it here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a340buyAamo

Well done to Katie’s daughter Lola for Oink-Oink on the left, and to my friend Marisa who lives in Madrid for Antares on the right of this rather sweet little piggy pic.

   

Also...

We moved around some animals at the end of last week. I wanted to get the mother of the stillborn out in the fields with the others. So out she went, happy to be in the open with some company to take her mind off things. Her two companions remain in the yard and will do so until they calve as we have to closely monitor their behaviour at all times. I also separated three steers for “finishing”. This means they will now get access to some rolled barley in addition to grass and some extra silage in order that they fatten nicely. This is important for the marbling process in addition to adding bulk to the carcass and resulting in a better price at market. This last stage of a beef animal’s life is crucial to the final eating quality of the meat and is something of an art. You don’t want them too fat, nor too plain, however, given the inherent qualities of South Devon as a breed you are at an advantage from the outset due to their fantastic natural marbling traits.

Finally, it rained yesterday! It rained today too. It rained overnight as well. I haven’t been in such a good mood for ages. This is great news. I’ve already sectioned off a few of what I call “buffer fields” so that the moisture can take effect and the grass can recuperate un-trodden. It also means that the silage cut, which will take place in a week or so, will be better than we thought. We were kind of down to the bone as far as grass is concerned and so this change of weather has really helped us and many other farmers, although some crops will have suffered permanently as a result of the lack of rain until now.

Happy sad...

I got back from Madrid mid afternoon last Monday and went to see how Robin had been getting on with some of the gateways. (We have contractors in every summer to cut the silage and their large tractors and bailers barely squeeze through the overgrown brambles and tree branches that crowd all of the field entrances). Two things here, firstly, the removed undergrowth has revealed the remains of what once was a fence which will now have to be replaced, and secondly, due to the dry conditions I’m too scared to burn the massive pile of twigs, branches and brambles Robin cut off through fear of accidentally torching all of the woodland between here and Brightling and ending up on the telly.

I forgot about the above when I suddenly had to deliver a stillborn calf on Tuesday morning, one of only three calves still to come at this late stage. This always focuses the mind. I spotted the mother in a state of labour at about 7 o’clock in the morning...the waters had already broken. I felt uneasy with this because calving tends to start early morning, say 4-5 ish. So, had the waters broken two or so hours before? If so, this could be a problem.

I let a few waves of contractions take place and saw a hoof, then two, then the beginnings of a snout. I got quite hopeful, but the contractions were lazy and short and the mother, a heifer, seemed quite disinterested in what was going on at her rear, another bad sign.  After a short while I decided to attach ropes to the feet and pull. This was quite tricky as the mum had drawn the calf back in by this stage and I had to force my hands inside and tie the ropes around the first hoof joint on each leg of the calf. It took a lot to hold against the contractions, albeit they were weak, and after fair old struggle I got him out, lifeless. I knew he had been dead for a little while but gave a couple of strong forceful pushes on his ribcage just in case, and when fluid emerged from mouth and nose I knew it was certain. All part of dealing with livestock, and a possible lesson learned. You have to become a stoic in this line of work.

Don't forget to check in tomorrow for some fun and japes in "Name That Pig™" with Penelope the chicken. Oh yes, a real game (poultry really...sorry) bird she is too! Short of being able to extend the farm budget to contract my other favourite ginger bird, Kaddy Lee-Preston from BBC Southeast Today, I had to make do with a chicken as my beautiful assistant for the spectacular cornflake-inspired pig-name selection extravaganza! Don't miss it!