Another New Arrival

[Steve Hanson]

Steve & Fiona

would like to announce the arrival of their new baby Boy, Paris.
Paris was born at 6:00 am 07/04/06 weighing 55Kg.
Mother (Poppy) & Son are doing very well.

Poppy is a pure breed Normande cow, and Paris is a cross Normande-Charolais, Paris was born without human assistance and was standing and feeding within the hour, much to the relief of her mother who’s milk was flowing freely. Paris is brother/cousin to Camellia who was born 11 days ago, being a boy he took a little longer to make his entrance in to the world, which is normal in the world of cows. Poppy was covered (Mated) 3 days after Clover but Paris took 8 more days before his birth to develop and put on the extra 5Kg, he is feeding well and walking without any problems just 2 hours old.

Photos will be on my site by this evening if you are interested, I would post them here but photos never seem to work for me from my host.

[Millymollymandy]

Well done, you proud parents you! How are you weighing your babies - got a large set of bathroom scales?

[ina]

Congratulations!

Even calves seem to be getting heavier all the time... But no wonder, with a Charolais as a father. We have three Charolais bulls on the farm, and boy are they massive! Even the little one (just bought to eventually replace one of the older ones) is considerably heavier than the dairy cows I'm used to.

Do you milk the mothers, or are they purely suckler cows? I don't know much about the breed!

[Steve Hanson]

Do you milk the mothers, or are they purely suckler cows? I don't know much about the breed!

Hi Ina

I had never heard of Normande cows until I moved to France 21 months ago, we wanted a Jersey cow, but on the advice of books I bought from a local farmer, I asked for a milk cow and he offered me 2 Normande cows (Poppy & Clover.) I agreed to buy them because they are nice looking and very gentle, then did some research afterwards, there milk yield is no where near that of Friesians but its is of considerably better quality with a much higher butter fat ratio closer to that of Jersey’s with a yield some where in between, peaking at 19 Litres a day. We got 10 litres a day from Poppy with only a kilo of barley on top of the grass, which was only to keep her still for hand milking.

We will milk them after a month of feeding the calves and then give half the milk back to the calves and utilise the rest, we had milk, cream to die for, butter, and cheese last year. I hope to make some yogurt and ice cream this year as an addition to our diet.

The calves will go for rose veal at 4 months as it pays very well in France and without any unnecessarily cruel treatment they will live outside and feed on the mother’s milk until its time to go for slaughter. The limousine region of France is famed for its rose veal because it is now and has always been grown naturally, no crates or barn confinement unless it is of course to wet under foot to be out.

I have to say I would recommend them to anyone who is thinking of a house cow for hand milking, I have never done any of this before and the cows are so forgiving and gentle, caring for them it is one of the real pleasures in my life.

[ina]

They sound ideal - just what a dual-purpose cow should be like! I'm glad to hear that rose veal is so popular in France. When I was there, we had one bull calf on the farm which went at 6 months, equally fed only on grass and milk, but they were quite disappointed with the offers they got for it. Maybe it was just that bit too old for veal.

[Boots]

Wow Steve - That was brilliant. Thanks heaps for sharing it. I feel really excited for you both right now, as I just love birthing time and we flat out revel in it round here.

Am so glad you are enjoying it too - and sharing it. It is hard for me to imagine life without births in it now days. It is heaps special, huh? Always makes me re-evaluate stuff... all the silly stressy stuff just kind of fades away, and it helps me move into a real grateful space. I often figure folks don't understand, but tonight I think you would.

Enjoy!

[ina]

... all the silly stressy stuff just kind of fades away, and it helps me move into a real grateful space.

Don't want to put a damper on this - I, too, enjoy spring, with all it's calves and lambs and then, deer calves a bit later... But it is the most stressfull time on the farm! Meals always on the run, never even half a day off, rarely a full night's sleep... I think if you said that the stress fades away at this time, you'd get some pretty angry looks from those who have to do this for a living.

[Boots]

Well, that would be a shame.

We all holler out and let each other know. It is nice to share a birth. Even the old guy whose been farming cattle for over 60 years gets his wife to ring and let folks know. The pre and post natal care is an extra load, but the moment of birth, followed by the first stand and the first suckle... there is always something wonderful in that.

I knew a midwife who worked in a major hospital and asked her what it was like to spend her days delivering babies. She said she considered herself one of the most lucky people in the world, because every day she was reminded of the wonder of life. That's where I was coming from...

[ina]

I don't think after a few hundred lambings within a week anybody would still holler out! At least not in delight... Yes, we all like it when everything goes well, but (especially this year, with very adverse weather conditions) things aren't like that. How many cattle does this guy that you mentioned have, that he gets his wife to ring around and tell people? We have only around 90; plus over 1.000 ewes, and 150 hinds. That would be an awful lot of phone calls.

And just to put that in perspective, 1.000 ewes might just give a family farm a living: Average income from that is about £10.000/year, which is about the same one person would earn on minimum wages, for a 40 hour week, with holiday entitlement (it's not considered enough to lead a decent life on - you'd probably still get something like housing benefit on top); only the farmer and his family have about 2 people working on this full time, which means around 60-80 hours/week/person, with no day off, and no holidays... And yes, people still do it because they like the way of living, and that includes the joy at seeing new life! But believe you me, nobody would have the time to ring a friend just because a ewe has lambed... Maybe if she has managed to get a live quintuplet, that's still quite rare (we had two quads this year).
And some of my colleagues have already complained about those "townies" that go all gooey over the lambs, and want to visit them all the time. I think it's a good thing they want to come - too many people don't know where their food comes from. But I make sure they see the dirty side of it, too, and the hard work involved - not just the cute little lambs that I am bottle feeding 5 times a day, because for whatever reason they can't be on their mums.

Don't get me wrong - if I only had half a dozen animals, I'd be delighted at every single birth. But this time of year is very stressfull for livestock farmers (our shepherd always loses about 2 stone during this time, and that although his wife feeds him twice as much as usual), and so much depends on how things go, that there isn't much time and strength left for pure joy.

[Boots]

We must farm quite differently over here, I think, Ina. And that may be due to weather conditions?

Here livestock isn't mustered to deliver, and only milkers would know what the inside of a shed looked like here. And that's just in and out. Feedlot cattle (not breeders) are kept in small confines, but our graziers run cattle on huge expanses and they deliver in the paddock. Those due are usually run in the paddocks near the house, but that doesn't gaurantee they will be within eyesight. The house paddocks can sometimes be up to 100+ acres. They generally deliver unassisted.

If one should happen to deliver by a fenceline, or near the house it is a privilege to be a part of. Usually they go and find themselves a quiet place and simply appear with the babe by their side.

I have three birthing stalls for my goats, and even though I always space breeding, I've had them full a couple of times. Nature has its own clock I guess. I have also had babes born in the pens when they have surprised me and come early, and have no doubt anyone with huge numbers would be chaotic if they were attempting to house them and hand feed them all. To be honest, I don't think I could even imagine it! It would probably be considered nuts to even try and do that here - but things are different and necessity must drive it over there. We do it simply because I believe it makes better animals, and there is some research to suggest handling also contributes to better meat, but my herd only totals 17 and will soon return to about a dozen. We only raise what is sufficient for us. I have just spent the past few months bottle feeding two kids and that in itself ran me ragged. It is very hard to imagine that your farmers do this as part of normal practice, but it sounds like it is about working with the cold conditions?

Our graziers simply wouldn't do it. A rejected calf is just that, rejected. It is counted as a loss, and a good year includes reasonable losses. The "Big boys" just look at their farms like a business, and to them it's about minimising the output/work. Bottlefeeding is not worth the extra input (in time and money) and running two stockmen to tend 1000 head just wouldn't be considered viable here (unless they were brothers, maybe). The cattle farmer up the road is 8o odd years old. He runs a couple of thousand on just as many acres and he does that alone. He has no staff and just gets a mate or neighbour over for tagging or loading etc.

I prefer to look at my little farm as a lifestyle, and I came here to enjoy it. I have learned heaps from the old guy up the road, because we are different in many ways. I bottlefeed and he wouldn't. He removes trees for grass and I wouldn't. Things are different for different people. Not wrong, just different.

There is a lot I don't add here... simply because it is so different and I figure it will not be of interest to you on the other side of the world... or relevant might be the better word. I find it interesting considering the different ways things are done, and why they are done that way in different places.

Steve was sharing his joy and I appreciated that... Maybe that's why the old guy gets his missus to ring and let me and the girls know their is a new babe in the paddock. Who knows? We don't ring or sing out to everyone. Just those that would enjoy it.

[ina]

Yes, farming in Australia and Europe is worlds away... No just because of the weather. I worked on a dairy farm near Timboon/Victoria for 8 months (in 1984/85). We milked 320 cows, but I think that would be considered quite a small farm nowadays in Australia! It was quite a shock to the system. Calving was seasonally; late calvers were induced, the resulting calves were left to die.

The reasons for differences apart from weather are, I think: The price of land, the density of population (which is related to the first), and the power animal rights and welfare associations have here.

Land, even hill land (like this farm where I am), is a lot more expensive than land in Australia. That means you have to farm relatively intensively to make it pay. Every single lamb counts; you are aiming for twins all round. The more lambs a ewe has, the more she needs in the way of feeding; the more likely she is to have trouble with lambing, which is why lambing is often assisted. Multiples sometimes get their legs entangled! Or they don't come out the right way (back legs first, breech, legs bent back, head bent back...), which can lead to problems. On the other hand, single lambs are often quite a good size, so they need help just to get the head out before the lamb succumbs. Blackie males (Scottish Blackface) are born with pronounced horn buds, which can make it very difficult to push out. In other words, if lambing wasn't assisted, the losses would be quite high. Losses also occur when the mother doesn't clean the remnants of the bag off the face of the lamb quickly enough, so they asphyxiate.

Generally, Blackie singles are lambed outside (they are scanned during pregnancy so we know who's getting how many, which makes for a better feeding regime and lambing). But then, somebody will be out there most of the day to assist if necessary, and to treat the lambs as soon as they are born! Most other sheep are lambed indoors. If the weather is fine, they can go out after 1 or 2 days; unfortunately, the weather has been exceptionally cold this year, which has given us headaches as to where to put them - the sheds aren't really big enough to keep them in! A colleague told me yesterday that her father, who keeps a few sheep, had put the 16 strongest lambs outside with their mums and lost 9 of them overnight.

We have to treat the sheep for worms and diseases quite regularly, too - simply because they have to be kept in smaller areas than in Australia (land price again), so the land becomes contaminated.

I also think that associations like the RSPCA (Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals) www.rspca.org.uk would have something to say about leaving so many lambs and ewes to die out there, without being attended to and put out of their misery... If a lambing goes wrong, you might lose not only the lamb, but the ewe might die an awful death, too. They have a very strong lobby amongst the general public. There are always some overly zealous folk out there who report farmers who leave their cattle outside in winter - oh dear, it's cold and the fields are muddy... Without thinking about the fact that some breeds just wouldn't do indoors... Highland cattle, for example, and other robust breeds.

Bottle feeding, by the way, doesn't really "pay". It's done more out of compassion for the animal, and generally tends to be the job of somebody who doesn't get paid for it - i.e. the farmer's wife... I offered to do it, although it's not part of my job, but I knew they wouldn't have time for it.

We've had a pretty bad season so far; and not just because of the weather, so we are more than usual stressed out. (Well, I'm not - as I said, I'm not really part of the farm staff, I just help out.) We lost 5 calves so far; three stillborn, two deformed, which had to be put down. (They are brought in some weeks before calving, so it wasn't the weather to blame.)
We lost a lot of lambs, too; that, I think, was mostly due to the bad weather in the weeks leading up to lambing. Lots of mummified lambs, and stillborn lambs; several ewes died or had to be put down just before lambing. We do see it all, so yes, it's a lot more stressfull than just waiting for the ewes to turn up with their new offspring!

Oops, I think I'd better stop my long tale. One question, though: How do male lambs get castrated nowadays? I suppose the days when the testicles got bitten off are over in Australia, too? We ring them, tails, too, and it has to be done before they are a week old.

And now I'd better go and do the evening feed - one little girl still on the bottle, the others have progressed to the bucket!

[Boots]

While the area I live in was originally dubbed "the best sheep grazing area ever seen" by Baxter when he first mapped it, the introduction of spear grass soon changed that. Sheep are generally farmed in the southern states as the humidity up here is the main problem, I think. So sheep are not something I know very much about at all, I'm afraid.

As far as I remember they have always been docked and tailed with rubber bands, rings and clamps.

Whatcha think we are wild men or sumpthin?

[ina]

Now how did you get that idea... No, but I know it used to be done like that - here as well! After all, a lot of Aussies came from Scotland originally... So if you are wild, we are to blame! (Well, not me - I'm only a voluntary Scot. )

[ina]

Apologies to Steve, by the way, for hijacking his thread for this discussion on sheep production methods in various parts of the world...

I just had a look at your website - don't know why I didn't do that before. Wonderful photos of your cows - they look truly content!

[Boots]