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Down In Devon March 2008
First of all I must apologise for not writing January or February diary.
All has been much the same really, scraping out the slurry, bedding-up the
cattle, and then more of the same!
If you remember back to the summer of 2007 (if you can call it a
summer) our first cut silage was done early on the 1st May, and our second cut was very late due to pouring, monotonous, every-day rain!
Well the cows have to eat our second cut silage
first, purely because it is in front of the first cut silage. They ate it very well considering the quality, but as soon as they started on the first cut the milk shot-up by about 350 – 400 litres
a day. So as from about the first week in January onwards the milk yields have been very good.
In the first week of March, we had two, in calf young cows abort
within about a week of each other. The set the alarm bells ringing and we had our vets to do several blood tests on the two cows to try and determine the cause. Both cows came back positive to
Leptospirosis this is a disease which can cause abortion and drop in milk yield. They say there are two types of dairy herds, those that know that they have Leptospirosis and those that don't know they
have it. We were obviously in the latter group.
On advice of our vets, we have started to vaccinate the whole herd against it. We have already done all the cows, in-calf heifers and bulling
heifers once – we will have to repeat the 2ml injectable dose again in April.
I trust that you all had a good Easter (and not over indulged on
Easter Eggs). We had about eleven heifers calve around Easter time, and on Easter Sunday morning I was milking one of the heifers for the first time. Some how she managed to kick me in the ribs, it
was very painful, but I had to carry on as my brother and his family had gone out for the day. Like atypical farmer you carry on working, but after about a week, I went to the doctor and had an
X-Ray. It transpires that I have a broken bottom rib. I couldn't bend very well and had to ask my wife to help me get dressed!
Things must be getting bad when you have to ask your wife to dress
you instead of undressing you!!
See you next month.
All the best
Steve
Down in Devon
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