A day in the life of...suckler farmer in Rural Ireland

Howdy all. Thought I'd do one of these pictodays for Imgur. I'm on a small suckler farm in the West of Ireland. This day technically did start with this photo as it's the bale wrapper finishing up at 1am. The summer has been pretty crap here so far and the fields are very wet. We'd just managed to cut and row about 1/3 of our meadows so we had to work until the wee hours to get all the bales wrapped. This is to ferment the grass in order to preserve it when it's made wet.

Have to check our heifer on the calving camera, she's very close to calving and I like to check her every six hours or so. We lost the last calf we had here because he was massive, so she has been inside on hay for a month. No baby hanging out of her, all is well.

Sometime around 5am I'm woken by one of the cats at my window, thanks Squeak. Really appreciate it. Definitely needed a mouse to perk me up.

I sleep with curtains open. Why? Because I live in the middle of nowhere and it's nice to have a bit of brightness to wake up in. Slept in late this morning as I was up last night. Ho hum, bed buddy is here too. That's Kovu the demented, snoring, bed stealing, coleslaw eating, cat.

I leave him there when I get up, lazy yoke.

Our sucklers are outside the window this morning so I don't have to walk to them, woohoo!

This is Odd-Ear, odd-ear is a weird cow because she resembles a racehorse (compared to other cows anyway. She's a Blonde D'aquitaine so that probably explains it, those leggy blondes!)

Mmmm coffee. Mornings always start with coffee and laptop and reading the news online. I studied journalism in college but I'm not working in that area, am on a break for the moment while I decide what to do next. Possibly the green cert or something with agriculture, have applied for college and accepted into a couple of places but I will need to decide in the next week about what I want to do.

No calf yet but she's very close. Her pin bones are down (pelvic ligaments either side of the tailbone) and her udder is full. I'd be more specific here but does Imgur want gory details? Probably.....
She's broken down to calve, think this is a local way to say it. It means her 'personal cow area' is all clack and loose, getting ready to push that baby out of there!

I do a bit of pet sitting for people near me so it's time to check on those for the day. This is Binky!

These are Bailey and Mrs Brown. Mrs Brown is a geriatric feline, she's almost 20 years old!

Look at that little squashy snookums :)

Sticks! We have a solid fuel cooker and kindling is just picked up around all the fields. This is stuff I've gathered over the last while, just bringing the barrow back to the house now (it was in the cattle shed)

Checking the first group of cows! Aren't ye nice to line up like that eh.

Time to decide what veg to have for lunch! We don't have much ready to eat yet, bar onions, potatoes (obviously!), rainbow chard, cabbage and cauliflower. I eat lunch while my parents eat their dinner. It's an Irish thing to eat dinner between 1 and 2 but I prefer to eat a light meal then and eat a larger dinner later. I also don't have breakfast so it suits me to eat late.

Giant cauliflower, that'll do :)

My haul- Cauli and rainbow chard.

Man the tractor stations! That's another meadow that's not cut yet. Plus our slatted shed in the background. The house you can just about see is one we restored & we rent it out in summer when the shed is empty.

Standing at my post. We have to bring all the wrapped bales in, or else the bottoms will sag and they can't be lifted without bursting the wrap. (Holes mean the bale goes off)
We are also doing up our general area a bit, we're erecting a new fence along a shed that has vintage tractors in it. The house you can just see is our old homehouse (mentioned again below) so it dates back as far as records show. We have no idea how old it actually is but it's definitely over 200 years. Nobody lives in it full time but we have family stay there pretty much every week or second week.

Directing drivers backing up. There's three tractors here today, our own and two neighbours, we'll help them when they have bales etc. Tis a great little parish :)

Checked the heifer while walking past the shed and she had two feet sticking out. I put on calving ropes and pulled him out. Just to make it easier on both of us.

Drag calf up into the lying area (off the rubber matted slats) and onto a nice bed of straw. This guy is a pedigree Limousin so someday he might be off making new babies himself. His Uncle is doing that in Galway right now ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

While directing the tractors in and out the road (our lane is busy as swimming lessons are on at the lake beside our house) I forage the hedges for noms. Wild strawberries!

And wild peas!

You have to eat 3 or 4 to actually get the equivalent of a single farmed pea but they're really nice. Not sure if worth the effort though, only cause I'm bored and have to stand here I wouldn't be arsed.

Somebody has botched a bale so I'm sent off to patch it up.

Be grand. Fertiliser bag cures it.

Sorta mucky ground after cutting/rowing/baling/wrapping/moving :( We'll need to roll it once it gets a bit drier.

Dinner made from my earlier haul, that was a damn good cauliflower cheese. The spuds are also from the garden, the pig is organic from Co Cavan.

On my next stop he's up and standing and the heifer has him pretty much licked dry.

Baby steps dude, don't fall down again!

I have to go to our outfarm to spray the heifers udders with this, flies are very bad at the moment and it's just good practice to try and keep them off cattle so they're more comfortable.

Our land here is up a right of way, this is originally where my family came from. My great-great-grandfather moved from this area to marry a lady in the area I now live in. He moved into the old house mentioned above that's called the homehouse. Back then it was very strange for the oldest son to leave his home farm and marry into another. That rebel!! :)

*Diddly-aye music of leprechauns play*

Heifers! And Noo Noo the cow. We always put a cow with young stock as the young ones are daft and will break out. They're right at the top of the hill, a long walk for me!

From this point on the hill you can see three counties- Roscommon, Longford and I think they're the Sligo mountains. Not 100% sure. May also be able to see Cavan but sure who'd want to look at them!

There's a shower coming!

Maxy acting the eejit.

I had to get these two ladies in to tag them for the Beef Genomic Scheme I mentioned above This looks for desirable genomic traits like milk or high fertility. You can read more about it here- http://www.icbf.com/?page_id=1914

We're also in a scheme called GLAS which stands for Green Low-Carbon Agri-Environment Scheme. It's a way to encourage farmers to be more aware of the environment and how we affect it. So we get money for different options we can take up. This is a field we planted with oats and linseed for wild birds, it has to be fenced off from cattle until next Spring. We also had to fully secure our fences around watercourses, plant trees, leave meadows uncut until July. Other options also included putting up boxes for birds and bats but we didn't take those up.

This is one of the tubes, the hollow part is what goes through the ear and a 'notch' is taken out and stays in the tube. The DNA is then extracted from this.

We're in a scheme where DNA is taken from breeding animals to try and determine desirable traits in cattle. Every year we have to tag a selected number of cow/calves and send off the samples.

On the way back to the house I stop in to a neighbour to treat a calf of his with scour. Neighbour is in his 80s so I do most of the cow side of things for him. (Dehorn/tag/register/treatments etc) I can't take much photos here cause he gives out about newfangled things and technology.

Then pay a visit to the bog, that's Fraggle the dog. I spend about an hour here turning turf.

Kovu is not a selfie cat. Oh look, my pale Irish skin is actually blinding!!

Late evening walk and it starts to rain so I get stuck down at the lake. It's full of pike and perch and many people who rent out our cottage come here for the fishing. It's 10.25 taking this photo so it's damn time I got some more food! (last snack was goats cheese on rice cakes around 6pm!)