William and Andrew Cowx: Wet, cold and windy but thoughts are turning towards silaging

A few people lower down have got their silage in but it is difficult to get two or three fine days together, hopefully when we are ready in about a month’s time things will be better.

The ewes and lambs are doing well and are still getting a little cake, perhaps unnecessarily, but I find when they all come up to the troughs I can count them and see that they are all there.

We have had quite a few on their backs and unable to get up, also any ewes that are rather slow and dragging a leg indicates mastitis of which we have also had trouble with but so far have only lost one. Sheep continue to be a good trade, but as more lambs come onto the market we can expect the trade to weaken a little.

Stones play havoc with the mower and our contractor is not happy if they go through the forage harvester

All of the young bulls except for four have been sold fat instead of taking them to a breeding sale, which entails a lot of work. They made between £1,000-£1,200, averaging about 190p/kg so we were quite happy with the result.

We had to do a caesarian last week. The calf was big and twisted, so rather than lose a calf and waste a cow, we took the calf out the side.

Our investment in a crush where we can take the side rails out makes operating much easier and safer. Both cow and calf seem to be doing well.

Andrew and Adam have been round the silage and hay fields, picking up branches and replacing any lying stones back onto walls and in some cases going round them with the roller in case any have been missed.

Stones play havoc with the mower and our contractor is not happy if they go through the forage harvester.

The vet rang a couple of days ago to say he could get some orf vaccine for the lambs but it was very scarce and could only let us have 150 doses.

The ewes and lambs that we vaccinated would have to be kept separate from the unvaccinated ones for eight weeks as the scabs that dropped off the vaccination site were very infectious. We decided not to do them as it was going to be very difficult to keep them separate for eight weeks.

It has been the YFC County Rally this last weekend and I hear our local club Caldbeck has won the overall cup once again. They seem to be proving hard to beat - congratulations to all involved.

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