Constantly cheeky lambs, holey gloves and feet...

Trouble the Lamb (fully healed if still a little bald) and her cronies have got into my lovely fenced area where the round bales are. I knew it wouldn’t be lamb proof but their disregard for my handy work is disheartening. They are chewing at the bales and possibly playing hide and seek in there. With their little teeth they won’t do much damage but it will still need patching. Why they would want pre-packaged dried food when the fresh stuff is right in front of them is beyond me, although the lure of the forbidden must be a factor.

More fence trouble, the cows have made a hole at Willowford. They are sure the grass is greener on the other side of the fence so have pushed it down. We round them up and herd them back to the top field, to much complaining and mooing. Over the winter we are going to be making lots of new fences and hedges at the farm so this needs to be a temporary fix that will hold them until the hedge is laid. We knock in a couple of new posts to support the netting and string some barbed wire across the gap. The large tree and remains of a wall under the fence line don’t make this an easy task but it is a respectable patch when we are done. I do however manage to ruin yet another pair of gloves by tacking it to one of the posts, at least it wasn’t my finger. It seems we spend a lot of time trying to keep the stock where we want it and the stock spends an awful lot of time trying to get where it shouldn’t.

Daisy is lame. It’s important to have a cow named Daisy and ours looks like she has a poorly foot. Now sheep are always getting into foot related trouble (and every other kind of trouble), but cattle not so often. This is a mercy as getting a look at one of our big mamma’s feet is a major task. We get her away from the herd, she is limping and quite slow, and across the water meadows. Our cattle handling pen and crush are in the big Tarraby field. When we get into the field Daisy suddenly gets a bit frisky, the limp is not so bad that she can’t out run me if she wants to, and we have some problems getting her anywhere near the pen. Just at the right moment the vets Holly and Emma arrive to help out and between the four of us we get her into the crush. Now the hard part, with Daisy immobilised it’s just a case of getting a rope around her leg and hoisting it up so we can get a look at the foot. With proper application of strength it’s not too hard to pull her leg up if she lifts it, but she is extremely unhappy about this process and kicks and bucks around in the crush. Holly finally gets to have a look at the foot after much cajoling and soothing sounds to get Daisy to stay still. There is nothing too serious, a possible spit where a stone must have got in, and come out again, hence the sudden turn of speed. Holly gives it a clip and it looks better, she also gets a shot to make sure she doesn’t get an infection. We are Organic so don’t routinely dose our animals but if they really need it, they get it. An infected foot would be a terrible thing. Daisy is released and we take her back to the herd, where there is much mooing as she tells the tale of what indignities the humans have subjected her to. But she is not limping so much anymore.