No quitten we're whelan onto chitchat 12.

And you’re working with him, despite his age and tics… completely at ease with him. Accepted and respected by the community and if anyone said anything I'd bet you'd be fairly protective of him. There’s a lovely, accepting part of Irish society that’s often overlooked. There’s a fella in our neighbourhood who has fallen to alcoholism, a simple enough fella. He used to cut one of the neighbour’s grass and they paid him every month. I found out lately that they still pay him, even though they turned their garden into a driveway to accommodate their EV four years ago.

Oh got called this time last year, he got off. I sent in a letter. He didnt even know he'd be called for it

ahh bless it’s awful hard on families.

I went to it years ago , was looking forward to a childfree, breakaway from farm etc. I wasn't picked on the first day so was excused

Had one of those days where you question why the hell do we bother with livestock.

A pbnr LM cow (zag) calved unassisted earlier today, a fine big healthy bull calf but unfortunately she put her calf bed out about two hours later. She is a 2018 cow that we bought in as a incalf heifer. Vet called, calf bed back in, stitched up etc. Both cow and calf are fine at the moment.

A neighbour called by for a bale of straw and ran over/squashed one of the yard cats.

A 2019 BBx cow that we also bought in as a incalf heifer calved this evening on her own - good enough bull calf. I went to the pen to open the gate so I could put iodine on the calf's navel and give him a At Birth Tube and she charged at me. I called OH to come and help but she had a go at him as well. We left her be for a hour or so to see if the calf would suck by himself. He got up and sucked every part of her except a teat. We managed to get her out of the straw bedded pen and into the feed passage by enticing her with meal and I fed the calf 2l of beastings that I got from dairy farmer neighbour in the hopes that it would get the calf going to suck the cow. Several hours later the calf was bawling for a suck so desperate times call for desperate measures - we strapped a gate onto the front bucket of the 50B, drove down the feed passage, we enticed the cow out into the feed passage with meal and he gently pinned/pressed her against the back wall so that we could get the calf sucking and she couldn't attack us. We brought the calf out to suck her and when OH drew her teats she has mastitis in both front quarters. Long story short, we took the calf away to the other yard and I heated up the rest of the beastings that I got from our neighbour. I will get transition milk from him tomorrow morning and start the calf on CMR after. We injected the cow with a long acting antibiotic and put her into a pen with a cull cow for company.

I've been rearing, breeding and feeding cattle for over forty years and I've never had a animal with so much aggression - she's like one of those fighting breeds that you see in Spain or Portugal.

Friday The 13th... at least everyone came safe