first time lambing assistant

first time lambing assistant

Monday 21 March 2016

Calving


I spent this afternoon at my friend's farm in Stodmarsh helping tag their calves. I have not previously worked with cattle, so this will be good practice for when I go to visit my soon to be father-in-law on the Isle of Skye with his beef herd.

Some of the calves had ducked under the electric fencing and were sheltering in some nearby turnips. This meant that we did not instantly know who their mothers were, which we needed to record. The solution was to walk each calf back into the field and wait for their mother to find them so that we could update our records.

The heffer calf in the photo needed some extra milk so I was more than happy to bottle feed her.

Unfortunately, I was 10 minutes too late to watch an assisted birth with a calving jack, so I do not have any photos of this, but the equipment itself is pretty hefty.

On the lambing front, we are just about half way through now. 50 more in the field by the farmhouse and then a further 58 near Ramsgate.

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