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 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 badck and promptly forgot about it.

Later in the year Paddy made a 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 their ready for a new one before they've finished the one on the go. The next morning she was nowhere to be found!

Setting off to search the many hidden places we certainly weren't expecting to find her with a newborn calf! Tucked away behind one of the rocky outcrops we found her with a spritely little heifer.

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.

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