Bull break-in!

We would normally have the bull visiting in late summer into early autumn but back in April Paddy broke through the fence from our neighbours and spent 24 hours in with the herd.

We didn't think much of it at the time - all the cows should already have been in calf and he didn't seem to have hung to any of the previous year's heifers.

So we escorted him back and promptly forgot about it.

Later in the year Paddy made his usual planned return, hopefully setting things up for calving from the end of May.

That was unexpected!

One evening in mid-January we noticed Daisy making a lot of noise and wandering around the Quarry. At the time we put it down to her moaning about wanting a new bale of haylage - our cows generally tell us that they're ready for it before they've finished the one on the go. Then the next morning she was nowhere to be found!

Setting off to search the many hidden places across our largest and most rugged field we certainly weren't expecting what we found. Tucked away behind one of the rocky outcrops we found her with a spritely little newborn heifer calf!

Sooty, as she's called, must have resulted from the April break-in, which fits as Daisy didn't have a calf last year, so must have lost the one she scanned with, albeit very early gestation.

This gave us a challenge - January isn't the best time for a newborn to try and get a foothold in the world. On top of that Daisy is very protective of her calves and could have posed a risk to people on the footpath. This meant we had to move the two of them around a succession of smaller paddocks, but away from the rest of the herd.

Sooty

Although she started out a russet brown colour, Sooty has since gradually turned black as we expected.

Probably a good thing or she wouldn't suit her name very well!

As the grass started to get growing we managed to reunite the herd and, after the heirarchy had been re-established, they have been grazing happily together and Sooty has been growing up fast.

It will be interesting to see how she finds having the rest of the young calves that should join her later in the year.

That left four

The remainder of calving began in June, pretty much as expected. After our astonishing run of heifer calves (10 in a row) it was about time we had more bull calves and Swinden, Buttercup, and Bramble gave us three.

These cows are experienced mothers now and much more relaxed about the whole thing. At less than a day old Bramble would lead her calf to a secluded part of the field, nudge it under the polywire strands (currently off) and leave it hunkered down in the new hedgerow in between feeds. Despite wandering 50-60m away she was always aware of where she'd left him and of anything approaching him.

Gorple kept us waiting for another few days but by early July calving was over for the year with a heifer to round things up.

Naming

Lastly there was just the job of picking out suitable names. We stuck with our convention of a local feature followed by a shade of their colour and have chosen:

Coal Pit Sooty

Barcroft Oil

Gilford Void

Notch Night