Counting livestock --- 217

Counting livestock

It may seem to most folk a simple thing to do to count a herd of cattle or a flock of sheep, but quite often you don’t get a second chance to re-count at that time or in that place. If you miss count and your one down or perhaps gain one, and think they are alright you clear off to your next job thinking they are all okay, when that one you mis-counted might be stuck in a peaty ditch or in trouble away from the main group of animals, and left overnight could be found dead by morning.

With sheep, counting them as they leave a fold, they will run out at high speed, so a narrow gap wide enough for two sheep to get through is usually about right, any narrower and two will wedge in the gap and block the flow of sheep. It was an old practice to count the sheep by the score, (in twenties), if you look at that counting up to twenty, they are all one syllable words, into the twenties and beyond they are two syllable which does not make for fast counting.

So count up to twenty and drop a pebble into ya pocket, or if you have less than two hundred sheep you just curl one finger up for every twenty you've counted. That’s okay as long as no one or nothing distracts you when you grab or need to prevent a hurdle from falling and you cannot remember how many fingers you had curled up. Pebble in the pocket was a surer way of recording how many score of sheep you have, and can go beyond how many fingers you own.

Cattle I find easier to count from slightly higher vantage point when they’re spread out grazing, I take the view of the group like the top half of the face of a clock, and bring the imaginary finger round the clock counting all whom it passes over, then do a check count going the opposite way across them to get the same count again. This way of counting is okay when you have cattle all of the same age and size, the problem come when the suckler cows have calved and young calves are wandering about around and behind their mothers. It’s best to establish that all the cows are there, then go round and count all the calves in a separate count, check counting each time, it just reassuring when you get both counts the same.

When one is missing for some reason or other, you count and recount just hoping that the count will come right, then begin the search for who is missing, most of the older characters of the herd would be missed and know who you’re looking for. Some of the younger ones, all of whom would no doubt have the same father/sire may all be the same or similar markings and out of a group of fifty or more its near impossible to know which one is missing.

Cows that are calving will go off on their own, and very young new born calves will get their first belly full of milk and find a bog of rushes or a bog of nettles or even duck under the wood fence and lay down and hide in the under growth, as nature tells them to at that age. 

Very often the only way of finding them, is to find the mother who when alerted will raise her head looking in the direction of where she knows the calf is, very rarely will she walk and take you to it.

This was our leader (a good leader) for almost ten years.

So counting is not just for fun, it’s a serious matter to know if one is missing, if they get out through the broken fence it more often than not be a number missing, if you have a bad leader of the herd (If she gets in the habit of getting out) the lot will have gone.  Keep the leader happy and contented and the herd will be happy. As with people, they are all individuals, all have their own characteristics and mannerism, and you can almost read their minds as well.

 Owd Fred  

A Grip like Iron 152

A Grip like Iron

I don't know how mother came to have such a strong grip, (she could actual crack a walnut in her hand)  if she caught a hold of you for some reason, there was no hope of getting away, perhaps it was the hand milking in her younger days that gave her that grip, I remember some old cows were very hard to milk, it seems to have been bred out of them nowadays along with the bad feet and curled up toes and pendulous udders.

Mother had a Grip like Iron

When mother was young she had help, around the family farm,

Milking cows by hand them days, strengthened sinews in her arms,

Her hand were still ladies hands, no bulky muscle show,

Belied the strength built into them, beyond you'd ever know,

Mother had a grip like iron, nothing failed her grip,

Screw lids on jars and bottles, give it me she'd quip,

The grip she had to skin a rabbit, or ring an old hen's neck,

Crush a grape; she'd crush a walnut, power she'd got by heck.

Round by the coal ruck was her hammer, there to break the coal,

Coal it came in big lumps, some from steam loco it was bowled,

For coal alone the big lump hammer, it was there reduce.

Best steam coal was hard and bright, cracked it down for use,

When we were young she'd lace our boots, bow she'd pull real tight,

They never came undone all day, right into the night,

Sewing did with button thread, no tear came open again,

And buttons only came off once, thread she used times ten.

With age her hands were not so nimble, feel it gradually went,

Knitting that she'd done all her life, on wool she no more spent,

Her skin and nails were without blemish, soft and pink they were,

But on grip she never lost her strength; she was the best mum ever.

Owd Fred

When she sat down in the evening, mother would pick up her knitting, she could knit without looking and when we had our first television she could watch and knit at the same time. Jumpers hats gloves scarves socks( with socks she knit button thread along side the wool while knitting round the heels) she always had a good stock of wool. There seemed to be two stock colours, grey and fawn, other colours were bought for a specific jumper or sweater. When the need arose she would be darning socks, nowadays they get thrown and a new pair bought.
She liked to experiment with new patterns which she gleaned from her magazine, but mostly she only did the patterns up the front where it would be seen, then she could "bomb" on with the back and would produce a jumper in a week.

Mothers Weekly Magazine

Mother had weekly magazine, knitting patterns every week,

These she used to knit up the fronts, of our jumpers so to speak,

Some were cable some were ribbed, some were chequered squares,

Some were bobbles in a lump, couldn't buy anything that compares.

The wool she bought was in skeins, a dozen at a time,

This she got us to hold while she wound into balls like twine,

We held our hands out at full stretch, while she wound full tilt,

Arms would ache on the second one, then our arms would wilt.

Brother next in line was asked, turns we had to take,

Wool was grey, or fawn, or blue, for what she'd got to make,

Socks she knit one every night, jumpers took over a week,

Stitch the front and back together, sleeves to the arm holes tweak.

Started with the welt, the grippe bit round the waist,

Tested it on the one who it's for, half way round our hips she placed,

On up to the armpits, try it for length again,

Then the neck onto the shoulder, it was a blooming pain.

Next the socks they're mostly grey, started top welt round,

These were pulled up to our knee, and turned the top bit down,

Knit on down to the heel, measured it on our legs,

Three needles used on this job, pulled them on like stuck out pegs.

Heels we always wore out first, so in with the wool she knit,

Strong button thread along side the wool, in pattern this wasn't writ,

So when they did get bare and thin, she darned them time agen,

Then they were called our working socks, for us working men.

Sometimes when jumpers, got wore out up the front,

She would unpick the seams, and rewind a whole segment,

Then would knit again, into little gloves or woolly hat,

In winter balaclava, or scarves on many things she'd tat.

When we were young she'd knit and knit, no woollies bought at all,

As we left home she knit again, next generation when they were small,

Knit up to her seventies, when finger would not flex no more,

Big blow it was, she knit by feel, for old age yet, there is no cure.

Owd Fred

Don't rule out working with your hands. It does not preclude using your head.Andy Rooney (1919 --)

Garry the bull 150

Garry the bull (1996-2008)

 Garry splaying his front feet way out as if in an earth quake, and he still would not go down, so after ten minuets he was jabbed again.

 We had a bull a few years ago, we called him Garry, I had seen Garry advertised on the notice board at our local vet's surgery as a quiet Simmental bull good stock getter and easy to handle and seven years old.
After taking down the phone number off the bottom of the card, I rang his owner and duly went to see him "at home" and bought him. It turned out that part of his pedigree name was Linaka, so of coarse it was an obvious choice to shorten it to Garry after the retired footballer of that name.
Garry was a huge size and had to reverse himself out of the trailer when he was delivered to me, and within a few days was turned in with our suckler cows. He seemed a lazy and laid back sort of chap who when the cow he was following had been served once, he cleared off grazing. In fact I thought he was not working half the time but in the first three weeks he had successfully stopped all the cows.

This is Garry the Simmental in his last year with us 

Although he had been grazing on soft meadows with the cows for two years he gradually became lame, it was a growth or a corn that had developed between his cloven hooves in all four feet, one corn on his front foot became very sore and we called the vet for advice.
The only thing to do was to drop him with a needle, get him down and do the corns on all four feet, and give a good pedicure at the same time. So an appointment was made and we drove him into the coral ready for the vet, the vet being a young inexperienced girl who had been briefed on how to go about the job. A fair estimate was made of his weight, the dose was calculated and loaded into the syringe, Garry was trapped  behind a gate, (behind a gate because if he went down in the race he would be trapped) and his dose administered.
It gradually took effect and he should have gone down within ten minuets, after half an hour he was still standing swaying around with his front feet well splayed out making it impossible to push him down, even with some rope tied round his legs he still thwarted our effort to fell him, a further small dose was given but to no effect.
The job was abandoned; Gary was left in the coral to recover for a couple of hours, and a vigorous discussion was held with the vets. A further appointment was made and a senior vet came to resume the job that was started four days before. The same estimations were made as to his weight, and the medication was upped to a sure fire level of knocking him out. Just the same thing went on again with Garry splaying his front feet way out as if in an earth quake, and he still would not go down . So after ten minuets he was jabbed again, almost a kill or fell dose, we were told it was dangerously close to a lethal dose, and another ten minutes with his legs well bound, he finally went down.
Garry's head was pulled round and up to him shoulder, and held there while all his operations took place, we file and trimmed his hoof soles, and the vet got his knife out and cut the worst corn off, sprayed with purple spray and bound it to keep it clean and to stem the flow of blood. The other three feet the corns were frozen, with an aerosol the like that plumbers use to freeze a pipe to stop water flow when repairing a pipe.
The worrying bit now was the reverse injection, and how soon he would get up, in fact it was the best part of an hour before he did stagger to his feet, stayed in the coral for another three hours, then he was loosed back onto the meadows, with his bandaged foot being swung wide as he could not make out what had happened to him. After five or six days his bandage gradually unfurled and dropped off and he started to walk freely once again.
Garry's time came to an end when those same corns grew again, and the replacement heifers of his were needing another bull, so regrettably he was despatched off to meet his maker.
During the last foot and mouth outbreak in the 1990's we were forced to retain a bull calf out of one of our own cows, an Aberdeen Angus bull, we used him and kept a few  replacements from him, as we had done with the Charolais  bull before him. Then more recently we had a Hereford bull named Winston off a neighbour who is a breeder, so you can see from any photo's we have of our cows they are all beef bred, a total mixture of breeds, I like to think we have, hybrid vigour.

This is Winston the sire to all our present young stock

There's always one in every herd

There's always one in every herd, who won't respect the fence,

The one that's bold and watches out, not much common sense,

Test the boundary, test the posts, test rotten barbed wire,

That bit of grass just out of reach, the best she must acquire.

Gather the herd all round a gate, she's the one looking at you,

Ready to bolt and dodge and run, a test you think she knew,

She gets away the others follow, guess who's in the lead,

To the furthest corner of the field, just another stampede.

The electric fence its no use, the shock she can withstand,

Pushing the wire two yards beyond, break the single strand,

The other cows they follow her, they know she's got the knack,

Of how to beat the system, and always first to the rack.

Countyman  (Owd Fred)

Suckler Cows

The suckler cows they graze all summer, until we wean the calf,

When the calves we take away, cows they bellow not by half,

The calves the same in shed we keep, until they settle in,

Gates are high and fences too, all to stop them from escapin.

Three days it lasts, until they feel, the pain of hunger's stronger,

The cows they clear off down the field, and hang about no longer,

Calves have no choice but stay, feed them corn and feed them hay,

One month they need get used to living, in the yard all in a bay.

They all get wormed and gain no weight, till frettin they've forgotten,

Put them out on clean grass, feed supplements, no silage rotten,

There they will grow and gain the weight, they lost plus plenty more,

When at last they do get fat, read the scales its there we can't ignore.

Countryman (Owd Fred) 

Don't take the bull by the horns, take him by the tail, then you can let go when you want to.Josh Billings (1818-1885)

We had a cow and she's real mad 138

We had a cow and she's real mad

But only when we are trying to round them up, all the rest of the time out grazing with the other cows she is quite normal. If there is more than one person in the field she becomes aware she starts to get alerted, and if by chance we start to drive the herd towards the gate, her head goes up and ears pricked forward, and as the whole herd approach the exit of the field with her in the middle of the bunch, suddenly she charges out of the group in the opposite direction dodging any attempts' for us to stop her.

It's a habit she had got into and we could not even begin to try to calm her down, or break her of this syndrome. The last time we actually got her into the coral with the other cows was when we rounded them up to worm the calves. On that occasion we let the herd into a small field at the end of the lane, and left them in for twenty four hours. By that time they were all hungry and ready to be moved.
To put you in the picture, the coral is at the farm end of the lane, a number of fields with gates open into the lane, and at the far end, the end gate opens into the corner of a small field making it handy to walk the cattle down to the coral.
On this occasion with them being hungry for more grass, we opened the gate and the herd moved naturally toward that corner, including the wild one. As I said she takes no notice as long as we stay on the tractor, she thinks we are just counting them as I do every morning. They all gradually walked into the lane grazing and pulling at the grass down the hedge banks, she was the only one standing confused in the gateway, first looking down the lane then back across the field to us in the tractor.
It's like being in a hide, and well back across the field we waited, then finally she made her mind up to run and catch up with the others. When we followed she had caught up and mingled and was successfully got into the coral.
The time is fast approaching when the claves need to be weaned and the whole lot gathered again, but what worries me most is when we have to have them all in for testing, and have got to get them all in on that particular day and again three days later to read the results. Another problem as well is she has lost both her ear tags, I know the number, but just the thought on clamping her in the head yolk in the crush, and inserting two ear tags, if they hold still you can often get them into the same hole in the ear, but most likely we will have to punch them in as well as we can, more pain and suffering. Where DO we get her confidence back from?.

We do have a good leader of the herd,

The Cows Have Got a Leader
The cows have got a leader, and she watches all the while,
She knows exactly what ya doing, sometimes make you smile,
Only got to touch the gate latch, and up will go her head,
And walk towards the gateway, without a word being said.

Go to count them every morning, and check that they're all okay,
They think they want a new field, and walk off all that way,
Oblige them at your peril, as they mob you round the gate,
The fencings got to be strong, if you've got to make them wait.

If more than one walks in the field, leader walks the other way,
Takes the whole lot with her, she must know its testing day,
Got to walk round whole dam field, head them to the gate,
Seems that they have forgotten, and vet's is here by eight.

Leader walking off right way, the others following her lead,
Off towards the gateway, but they're gathering speed,
All stop short of going through, and start to circle round,
A young one makes a break for freedom, loose the lot confound.

A bucket with a bit of corn, the leaders up for that,
Always first one at the trough, and give her a little pat,
She follows where you walking, out off out down the lane,
Other think they're missing out, and follow once again.

So cherish your old leader, she can save you a lot of time,
Show the young cows where to go, while she's in her prime,
Miss her when she finally goes, to meet her maker's bullet,
End up as tough old leather boot's, n' fill a of pack of suet.
Owd Fred (Countryman)


The task of a leader is to get his people (in this case cows) from where they are to where they have not been.Henry Kissinger ( 1923- )

The Persistent Escapee (cow) 137

The Persistent Escapee (cow)

I remember father counting, cattle each and every day,

He counts and looks at every one, to see they're all OK.

A cow that persistently gets out, gets better at it, she learns to jump or hop over slack wire, learns to push rails down and push at the legs of electric fence posts, and push through weak places in hedges. Bulls soon learn to lift gates off there hinges or as a neighbour's bull has done he will break wooden gates in two.

It's a matter of not letting them get into the habit of getting out, "the grass is always greener etc". A secure fence, with barbed wire pulled up tight, barbed wire put up slack looking like a washing line is no good.
Cattle are a herd animal and they will all follow a leader, and if it's the leader that is that persistent one that is always getting out your in trouble. They all have there own personality and it shows when studied, particularly when gathered and handled.

They range from the one that steps forward to have its shoulder scratched to the one that will charge at you when cornered, and as for the newly calved cow even the most placid cow can turn nasty and charge. Their behaviour often follows in families, and how the mother behaves is passed down to the calf at a very young age, almost a perception or body language is read by the calf from birth, and if it's the bull that has a bad attitude being handled or driven, he too will influence the attitude of the herd.

There is often the one with the wicked eye, and the one that lifts her head up and pricks her ears at the first sign of strange movement in the field. Some will venture forward and investigate to see what's going on, the others follow by herd nature, and some will disappear away behind the herd or into a hollow where they cannot be seen.

It only takes one cow to give out a Bellow rather than a Moo, and the whole herd will go running to investigate what's going on. It some times happens when assisting a calving, when the cow gives one last big push and a bellow at the same time, then is a good time to retreat rapidly.
Back to the one that gets out, I solved the problem by selling her, she would get out into the farm track and graze down the hedge banks, then instead of getting back the way she had come, she would walk down to a small group of ten houses at the end of the track, walk into the gardens and round to the back (all open plan, silly idea) and hop over their back fence into her field.
When this had gone on for quite a few months the folk in the houses were getting very angry, every foot print sank deep into the lawns, the evidence was there, the row of peas were being grazed and dung pats left in exchange. The gardens are a foot or so above field level and while the fence was a sensible height from the field, from the gardens it was only knee height to the cow.

Some of the gardens had wooden panel fences with my barbed wire fence on the field side others are fancy post and rail or chain link wire mesh, all were pitched at a height that the occupants could see out across the fields. At this point I must say it nearly always happened during the night, and when they rang me to complain and I went to investigate only the foot prints were there. I finished up putting a new gate on the end of the lane; the cow then walked through the lane side hedge into the first house garden a six foot tall beech hedge and continued with the same route back to the field.
Fortunately she was the only one doing it, and she was so persistent that the only option was to sell her. She was a young well built cow only had three calves and I though it would be a good idea if she gave someone else a bit of "entertainment", NIMBY (not in my back yard).

The cows are Charolais Angus Simmental crosses put to a Hereford bull, calves are April born

I Remember Father's Cattle

In the mid 1950's vets were recommending worming young stock with a new product called phenothiazine. This was a green powder and had to be mixed with water and a pint or so was pour down their throats.(drenched)

I remember father counting, cattle each and every day,

He counts and looks at every one, to see they're all OK,

Now one day he sees's one cough, and then it was another.

If we don't do something quickly, we'll be in a bit of bother.

So off down he goes to get, some wormer in a rush,

And back he comes and reads the label, says get them in a crush,

No crush have we, but four strong lads, we'll get them in a stable,

Mix water and green powder in a bucket, put it on the table.

Four long neck bottles we did find, for dosing all the cattle,

Phenothiozine, it's called, and keep it stirred or it will settle,

The pop had gone as we made sure; we loved the fizzy taste,

One pint and half was dose that's needed, over dose was waste.

Pint ladle and a funnel now, into the bottled it was measured,

Us lads went in among the stock, as tight a they could be,

The bottles we did pass to one, who had ones chin held high,

Uptip the med-sin to back of throat, do not look down or ni.

The cow that coughs, coughs both ends, and chuck it back they try,

Its just a waste as we were told, but hits you in the eye,

Soon learn to leave it quickly, as soon as we could shift,

As dosing cattle get there own back, now who's being thrift.

We often wondered why we lads, had grown so big and strong,

When other lads around us, were only lean and long,

Put it down to fresh air, and read farmers weekly magazine,

But all the time it wasn't, twas Phenothiazine.

Countryman

Many of us have heard (herd) opportunity knocking at our door (garden), but by the time we unhooked the chain, pushed back the bolt, turned two locks, and shut off the burglar alarm, it was gone ( the cow).
Author unknown

The Dangers of Loading Cattle 136

The dangers of Loading Cattle  

As he (the steer) quietly turned and ducked backwards, his rump hit the crush gate, springing the partly open gate shut very rapidly, me with me yed ducked down in the crush got a ding on the head.      (I must add that this happened in October 2011)

On the odd occasion, now and then, things take a different turn to what you have planned for that day. I had planned to take two big steers in to Market, checked their tags, they had been pre-movement TB tested, filled the entry form and signed the passports.

Up early on the morning with the trailer already hooked up to the Land Rover, leaned over the field gate and shouted the bunch of cattle down to the yard where they have been starting to eat some silage. Once in the shed it was a matter of sorting out the two I wanted, and run them into the race. On the end of the race is the cattle crush from where we are able to load cattle directly into the trailer.
Reversed up the trailer with the tailboard right up to the crush gate, pulled in a side yard gate, and opened the trailer side gates. Everything is set with no possibility of escape, a job I done so many time over the years. Opened the race gate for the cattle to move forward through the crush and followed them through the crush tapping them on gently with a stick.

First one walked into the trailer then as the second one walked in, the first one turned and walked back out onto the tailboard, I pulled the crush gate almost too shutting myself safely inside the crush at the same time tapping the head of said bullock who proceeded to turn and go back into the trailer. As he quietly turned and ducked backwards, his rump hit the crush gate, springing the partly open gate shut very rapidly, me with me yed ducked down in the crush got a ding on the head. I clung onto the bars of the crush and gathered myself enough to realize both bullocks were standing patiently waiting for me to close the tail board which I duly did, only to realize I was loosing blood.
Sometimes these "old men's Tablets" that thin your blood are not a good thing when ya geta ole in ya ed, anyone would think that there is greater pressure if the hole is at the bottom of the tank, but then this is a pumped leak, at the top of the "stack" but still it leaked at a worrying rate.

Not wishing to stain the seats in the vehicle, I drew my jacket round to form a canopy on my lap whilst I drove the outfit down to the house where I sprinted (at my sprint) to the back door and got under the cold tap over the kitchen sink. A bit of firm pressure and after a few minuets it all but stooped bleeding (down to a drip). I threw my jacket shirt and jeans into a bucket of cold water to soak and put clean ones on again. Me wellingtons, well the last time I saw them in that state was when we used to kill and stick turkeys, caked with blood, wash them under the back yard tap.

In the meantime it felt safe enough for me to go through to the office to ring Mark, a chap who helps me on a part time basis, as and when needed. Well, now he was needed, he was not too far away, and he took the cattle down to market for me.
Next I rang my daughter to come over, and she was able to take me to the notorious STAFFORD HOSPITAL, (its been in the national news over the last year and questions asked in parliament about the number of patient usually older patients, being lost through neglect, too busy looking at saving on their budget, not enough front line nurses). Eileen my misses was the last to be told, as she can get very worried, it always looks so much worse when there is so much blood, ( too much stress at her age is not good for her) she examined the wound and said get off and get it stitched.

Six stitches pulled it together quite neat don't you think

By now it was 9am with about three people waiting in A&E (accident and emergency), we waited an hour only to be told they had no doctors on duty, and until one arrived, they could not proceed with any treatment. Another half hour and I was called through into the treatment cubicle where I could see a senior member of staff instructing a couple of young doctors of their routine, then eventually a full qualified doctor (at least I hope he was) came in with one of the new recruits, and went in details of what other pain or ailments other than what he could see, the proceeded to put in six stitches. 

He made a neat job, and a plaster was stuck over the wound. It was not until the following day when the black eye began to appear. The result is in the picture taken two days later.

How does the old saying go
A stitch in time save nine -- in this case it could mean nine pints blood

It could have killed my whole herd of cows 127

It happened one fine summer afternoon

Each cow that went through the gate stumbled onto their knees, scramble back onto their feet and panicked, and fled down to the far end of the yard.

It happened one fine summer afternoon, when I went to bring the cows in for milking, they all get strung out when the cows decide, as usual, to all walk single file over the foot bridge over the ford in the back lane. To make the job slower, some of them stop to rub an itch on their nose on the bridge side rails,

,

very few liked to walk through the ford itself because of the round cobbles stones in the bottom.
They turn into the farmyard off the lane between the farm house and the double cowshed where they would normally amble through the doors and find their own stalls.

 But on this one day each cow that went through the gate stumbled onto their knees, scramble back onto their feet and panicked and fled down to the far end of the yard. It affected some cows worse than others, and with them arriving all spread out in single file from around a corner it caught each one by surprise.
Not knowing what was happening way back at the rear of the herd I realise something was wrong when the last of the cows in front of me collapsed then scrambled with hooves slipping on the concrete and race off to the others standing startled in the far corner of the farm yard.

As I walked through the gate I too felt a tingle through my boots, a shock, a currant of electricity, my feet had boots on that part insulated me from what all the cows had just experienced, it was quite clear it was not going to be a normal pleasant afternoons milking.

We investigated what could be making the yard "live", but it came inconclusive, we turned all mains electric boxes to the off position, but still the yard was "live", so the Midlands Electricity Board (MEB) was called. It was a mystery to them at first, as they found nothing amiss on our premises. They started to follow the main wires out to the first pole out on the roadside, then up to the next farm, then to a group of cottages, at each stage they disconnected and re-connected to eliminate them as the cause of the leakage.
 The village school connection then another farm, then the blacksmiths shop, then on to the village pub. Here they found that electricity was being fed down the neutral wire for some reason and on down to our cowsheds and running to earth through our earth wires, which in turn was clipped to the underground water pipes leading from the house to the cowsheds.

 Once the pub was disconnected from the mains everything returned to normal, and we had the job of coaxing the cows back up the yard and into the shed to be tied up. We were some two or three hours late milking that day, and the cows had had time to clam down and stood chewing their cud wandering why they had not been milked.

On deeper investigation it turned out that the publican had just bought himself a new second hand cooker that he had wired in himself, and made the wrong connections when he installed it. I have no doubt that the MEB would have had a few sharp words to say to him, and the danger he had posed to other villagers and livestock.

Had the connection been made an hour or so later, when all the cows would have been tied in the shed by metal chains, to metal stalls, attached to metal water pipes, connected to all the water bowls, it could have killed the lot. It seems that as low as thirty or forty volts will kill a cow, where as us with wearing boot or wellingtons and we have the ability to run out of the sheds are more likely to have survived the situation.

I was surprised the following day to hear back from someone who was in the pub that night how the publican was laughing and bragging how he had nearly killed off a herd of cows when he turn on his cooker, fried beef and all that, but then I suppose it made a good talking point at the bar for quite a while, but it was no laughing matter at the time for us, it was before the time when earth trips were invented and became compulsory. Electricity is an invisible killer.


Faith is like electricity. You can't see it, but you can see the light.

Author Unknown

Calving time 12 April 2012 117

Calving time for the Suckler Cows12 April 2012

This is a last years photograph, and the calf about three weeks old, on good grass and plenty of milk a small birth weight calf will soon grow and catch up on the high birth weight calves, and you get less calving problems. 

I was reading just recently on someone’s blog that, if you feed the incalf cows late afternoon or evening they are more likely to calve during the day. Well I started doing this three weeks ago, and now had ten days into calving, and about half of them have calved.

It has turned out that the majority have calved during the day, but yesterday we had an incalf heifer looking as if she was ready to start to calve and she was looking around where to calve, just in the late evening.

Two hours later and just going dark, her water had broken and she had got two calves with her, but they looked remarkably dry and well licked from the distance. She had if fact taken to two other young calves that were only a day or so old and keeping them close to her. The danger here was that when she eventually had her own calf she may follow one or both of the calves she had “adopted” and forsake her own calf.

Try as I may, I could not persuade those two calves to go back to their respective mothers, but for the mothers, they were close by, and the one that’s yet to calve was following and getting between the calf and that calf’s own mother, and by this time it was going dark.

I went back to the house for couple of hours and left them to it, then went down again to see what the outcome was. Sure enough she had calved and was licking her own calf, and the other two matrons were close by and had claimed their calves back.

At first light this morning everything was okay, they had all separated and the right calves were following the right mothers.

Alls well that ends well, but it was building up into a situation where if she had claimed another cows calf, the cow that had lost her calf would not very likely take to the newly dropped calf, and that means problems all round. Also her newly dropped calf could have been abandoned, just after dark and got chilled and possibly died by morning. There was no end if situations that were building up, but common sense prevailed on the part of the new young cow that had just had her first calf.

Fingers crossed for the next two weeks, and we should have almost finished calving, all the calves so far have been remarkably small, this I put down to not over feeding them in the last three months with too good a silage, in fact they had equal quantities  in number of bales of wheat straw and meadow silage.

A few years ago we had very large calves  http://bit.ly/f0kUPG      and almost every one had to have assistance, with losses as well, I think that a small healthy calf will grow and make up for a light birth weight in the next few months of good milk and ample new grass

 Also another blog on the Suckler Cowscows  http://bit.ly/fLJvyE

The Suckler Cows have started Calving 116

We left the calves with them for most of the winter only weaning them in mid February, by this time it had pulled the mothers down, so almost all of the herd now looks "poor" or should I say slim.


Well its that time of year again and the suckler cows have started calving, so far we have had two.  Three years ago we went through a nightmare calving period where almost every other cow wanted assistance and also we lost a cow and a couple of calves during calving.
We had three sets of twins, one twin calf we found dead at three weeks old with a twisted gut.
 We had not had a cow have twins for almost twenty years, then as they say about London busses three come along all together.
Even the older mature and reliable cows were in trouble, I put it down to a different feeding regime.

The only feed they get every winter is round bale silage made off the same meadows that they graze on, made in July, and containing some of the soft rush rushes that are native to meadow pastures.

Over the winter of 2008/09 we thought it would be a good idea to feed a high energy mineral/ molasses lick supplement, you know the one's where they come in a four gallon bucket, just take the lid off and drop it in the field.
In my opinion, this had grown the calf inside the cow and produced the large calves, it also coincided with the change of bull, and at the time, all the blame was put at his door.

 But on reflection, some of the cows were fatter than we had had them in other years. So the following backend 2009 when we should be weaning all the calves, we sorted out the first calf heifers and a few slimmer cows, and weaned their calves. The rest of the cows that were still too fat, we left the calves with them for most of the winter only weaning them in mid February, by this time it had pulled the mothers down, so almost all of the herd now looks "poor" or should I say slim.

We have always out wintered the cows, none have ever been in a shed other than the first winter as weaned calves. Our herd is almost like a "hefted" herd, as you get in sheep when they know their own mountain pasture and born to that area of grazing. So it is that our cows, they are used to the peaty meadows that are dissected with bottomless drainage ditches, they get used to the ditches as calves and know its not a good idea to slip in, in fact the odd calf does drop in but never a second time, and nearly always get themselves out.

I dread to think of the time when someone else will bring a new set of cattle to graze down there, and the months they will have of dragging cows or cattle out of ditches, until all have learned their lesson. On the other hand, when I retire, the wise new comer could or would or should buy my "hefted" cows off me and continue the meadow grazing in a safe and reliable manner.


 To read more about these meadows refer back to the blog "Farming on a Peat Bog" or just press link     http://bit.ly/rhysHz


Another place where I talk about these peaty meadows "Moles and Meadows" is here along with a few pictures http://bit.ly/dIVOAU

Signs of Spring

Signs of spring are starting to show,
Though on the hill tops forecast snow,
Bright sunshine warms the sodden ground,
Cold showers and hail still abound.

Lawns and fields look brighter green,
Daffodils open and trumpets beam,
Grass it grows on lawn and verge,
Not on the fields, for the stock to purge,

Birds in hedgerow look to build nests,
Leaf buds appear as if by request,
First eggs are laid soon to be sat,
Full cover of new leaves, hides them thereat.

Badgers are trailing litter to nest,
Digging and cleaning for breeding quest,
Rarely seen but they root for worms,
Under hedgerows and cow pats presence confirms.

Soil it warms in the suns rays,
Germinate seeds dormant upraised,
Soon the countryside transformed and fresh,
Everything growing and looking its best.

Countryman

If we had no winter, the spring would not be so pleasant: If we did not sometimes taste adversity, prosperity would not be so welcome.Anne Bradstreet (1612-1672)

Dairy Cows of Old 114

Milked by hand some cows had teats almost as thick as your wrist , with front teats sticking out "east west".

Dairy cows of old, bore little resemblance to the diary cows of today. Back in the 40's every herd had its own bull often reared out of one of your own cows, served by a neighbor's bull, which was boasted to be the best in the neighbourhood. Blood lines and pedigrees' meant nothing when you had a fine looking bull running with the cows, however what came out of the "pot" was very often a different picture. This you would not find out until you had used the bull for three years when the first heifers calved down and came into the milking herd.

Up until that period in time; most herds were milked by hand and cows with teats almost as thick as your wrist were common place, and front teats sticking out "east west". Pendulous udders in the older cows, with udders only inches from the ground, these were kept on because perhaps they were easy milkers and perhaps the highest yielders.

Some of these cows were almost impossible to milk with a machine; the thick teats were not too bad as long as all four teats pointed "south". Some cows had low back quarters and empty looking front quarters, which did not suit the machine milking, I remember a big "duck stone" would be place on the claw of the milking machine, and then a cord would be over the cows back to hold the units up onto the front teats. Often the udder would be so low it was almost impossible to reach down to even get the units on.

Father started his herd by exchanging a sow for a cow around 1930 progressing on to a few more cows in small buildings with a cow shed and fifteen acres next to his father's farm. Then he married mother and they took on a farm near the edge of town where he was able to expand his herd. These would be a bit of a mixture of breeds including shorthorn and a few black and whites and everything in between.

Most of the milk went in Churns on the train into Birmingham and some mother made butter and cheese which was sold locally to shops or at the door. Then at some point the dairy started sending a lorry to pick up the churns from each farm, probably when the Milk Marketing Board was first set up.

This is what I remember of Butter churning

We Had an Old Butter Churn

We had an old butter churn, it was on a wooden stand,
A big handle on the side of it, to turn it all by hand.
The lid it had a sight glass, a valve to vent the air outright.
The lid clamped on with three screw clamps it up real tight

Mother turned the handle, till butter grains appear,
Drain the butter milk, rinse n' wash grains to till clear,
Add some salt and knead them, butter pats for this,
Packed into grease proof paper, on hot toast its bliss.

Countryman

It was mid 30's that father broke his arm and that meant he could not milk cows by hand, and it was around this time that the local machinery dealer had got the first milking machines in. They were keen to get a machine installed on farms in their patch, and father decided to go for one, he bought an Alfa Laval four unit outfit. Of course it took a bit of getting used to the new way of milking, and did not help that a lot of the cows had "rough" udders not particularly suited to the new teat cups.

Father got impressed by the herd of cows that the neighbour ran, these were pure bred pedigree Ayrshire's, most of his cows had nice small uniform well placed teats and compact udders that stretched forward under the cows belly. On looking at them from hand milking point of view, it would be finger and thumb milking, but this was the era of the milking machine and these cows looked as if they were designed for it.

When we moved farms up into the village the herd could be expanded, and along with his old neighbour they went up to Carlisle to the pedigree Ayrshire sale and between then bought a lorry load of incalf heifers, this would total I think about twelve, the cattle wagons were not as big as they are today.

 This they did for the following few years, one of the last loads that came down were polled, they had no horns, these were the first we had ever seen and they were bullied by the cows with horns.You may have seen old pictures of Ayrshire cattle, their horns curled up pitch fork style, and they knew how to use them.

To remedy this father spoke to his vet and he had all the cows horn cut off. As the cows were all tied by the neck in stalls it made it easy to restrain them, first the vet tied string tight round the base of the horn to act as a tourniquet and I cannot recall whether they were injected with pain killer. The instrument for cutting was a huge pair of shears with five foot handles, and the grip of three men to close them. A barnacle was put on the cows nose and a cord held by another man while the operation took place.

The local name for this gadget for holding a cow by the nose is Barnacle, the rough drawing above gives you an idea of how its opened, by drawing a spring up the shank to open the jaws, then place it in the nose and let the spring go, it been such a long time since I used ours that I cannot find it to photograph it. The ring at the top is for a rope, then you can hold an animal the same as you would hold a bull by its ring, I can tell you they don't appreciate it at all, and it has the benefit of taking their minds what you are actualy going to do at them.


They made rapid progress down the shed doing about twenty five cows on some cows the string had rubbed off letting the blood flow readily, squirting high into the rafters of the cowshed, it took a couple of hours for the vet to stem the flow from first one cow and then another.

When the calves were born, each calf's horns were cleaned with a fluid to remove any hint of grease and a type of glue applied called "colodian" this ceiled the horn bud and in effect dehorned the calf. It was a bit hit and miss some calves having one horn of in some cases both horns, it all depended on how clean the bud was when the colodian was applied, and how old the calves were, they had to be done in the first few days after birth. This went on for two or three years when a pair of dehorning irons were bought and the horn buds were burnt out ensuring that no horns were missed. These were heated on a blow lamp one being heated while one was in use, and the forerunner of the modern gas dehorning iron.

It was predominantly Ayrshire cows that made up the herd for the next twenty years, when the British Friesian cows with modern udders and higher yields and father started using a Friesian bull through artificial insemination on the Ayrshire cows. In the 1950's the Milk Marketing Board start the improvement of cow confirmation, by the use of Artificial Insemination, and monitoring the progeny born this way to provide proven bulls.

Over the following twenty years or more the udder and teat confirmation improved and where everyone had more than a cow or two with curled up toes and deformed feet, these were improved as well. Then in the following twenty years again saw the tremendous improvement in yields, and this coincided with new improved management techniques such as cubicles self feed silage and parlour milking, and a change over to Friesian cows.

Father ran a dairy herd

Father ran a dairy herd, of mainly Ayrshire cows,
These were housed traditionally, tied in stalls in rows,
Brought down for milking, had to be tied with a chain,
Each knew there own stall, a left and a right contain.

Cows were used to standing, to their own side of the stall,
They would part to let you in between when you call,
A bowl full of corn, and in with the bucket and stool,
Milked by hand while they're eating, was good job when it's cool.

He was one of the first to try, a new fangled milking machine,
A vacuum pipe was installed, new motor and pump had to be,
Four unit buckets and a spare, four cows milked nice and clean,
This was quicker by far, once the cows got used to routine.

Milk was cooled in the dairy, with water from the well,
The dairy collected it every day, had to be cool to sell,
The fridge was a copper heat exchanger hanging on the wall,
On top a Dee shaped receiving pan, fresh milk we poured it all.

Well water runs on the inside the fridge, milk run down outside,
Churns were filled for the dairy, to a measured mark inside,
Labelled with where it's to go, at one time went by train,
Now a lorry picks up the churns, from a churn stand on the lane.

Thirty more years he milked this way, in churns milk was poured,
Restricted now by the number of stalls, yields he did record,
Bulk tank came and a pipeline too, milk tanker every day,
This took Father to retirement, very modern to do it this way.

Owd Fred

Ayrshire cows always had a noticeably better butterfat level that could be seen in the milk bottles that it was sold in, Friesian cow on the other hand were often down to 3% fat, with the "blue water" up the bottom 97% of the bottle. Because father had just the odd Friesian cow in his herd, when asked "why keep a Friesian cow in a herd of Ayrshire" he always replied "we wash the shed down with her milk if the well runs dry".
Cheese - milk's leap towards immortality.Clifton Fadiman (1904 - 1999)

The Cow Stall (1940’s) 109

Each stall holds a pair of cows, left and right they learn,
Once they know their own side, one word n' they discern,

The Cow Stall gave way gradually to the cow cubicle starting around 1960, when the milking parlour changed milking for ever.

In the village each of the nine farms had a dairy herd, ranging from eleven cows on the small holding up to just over fifty cows one the larger farms. All the cows were tied up by the neck in stalls, and every cow knew its own place in the byre. The stalls were arranged in pairs with a left and a right hand tie up, the cows got used to which side to stand, it was almost impossible to persuade a cow to stand on a different side once trained to its particular side.
 If a cow was bought in from another herd, we always had a few single stalls at the end of the different sheds where we could tie up on either side, to accommodate and match the left or right hand cows.
In the early days, in winter cows were let out for exercise after morning milking, often to brows the kale that was cut and put out on an old turf near to the buildings. While out the stalls could be cleaned and bedded and the muck wheel barrowed out to the midden.

Hay which was loose (no bales) was put into every stall for them to come back in to, and later in the 1960's sugar beet pulp first became popular that was put into every trough from a feed barrow a bucket full per cow.
We still have a small shed that has three double cow stalls, the stalls are oak planks nailed to oak upright and two staves the same thickness forward to the front of the stall. The floor of each stall is bricks, back to a concrete kerb at the back edge of the stall, and a blue brick manger at the front. The treadle water bowl for each pair was clearly added to this set up, in more recent years.

Originally cattle were looses out for water to a large trough in the middle of the yard fed by gravity from a spring in the wood up the back fields.
There is a loft above with holes in the floor where hay was stored and stuffed down into the feed passage in front of the stalls (Fodder bing as we called it locally). Another addition to the shed was the vacuum pipe along above the cows for the milking machine when they first came in.

The Cow Chain

At one time cows were all tied up, in stalls to milk and feed,
Each one knew its own place, not much room indeed,
When young they didn't like it, but soon learned where to go,
Twice every day it was for them, walking too and fro.

Out to daytime pastures, to distant fields to graze,
Back again for milking on long fine summer days,
Walk into their own shed, and finding their own stall,
Standing there to be chained, got to chain them all.

Each stall holds a pair of cows, left and right they learn,
Once they know their own side, one word n' they discern,
"Come over" spoken to them, they know your coming through,
The pair will part, n' chain them up, n' stand their cud to chew.

A scoop of corn while milking, then wait till milked the lot,
Loosed off the chains they wander, out to pasture we allot,
Clean the sheds and clean the stalls, till milking comes again,
To tie them up you always need, good strong shiny chain.

Countryman

Right now there is only two herds of cows in the village, and just about the same number of cows as what there was when there was nine herds. And where there would be around fifteen people involved in milking; it is only one man per herd (two herds) who do the milking now.

It is not necessarily those lands which are most fertile or most favoured in climate that seem to me the happiest, but those in which a long struggle of adaption between man and his environment has brought out the best quality in both.T S Elliot (1888 - 1965)

The village wheelwright and his family 32

When Jim was walking off down the village, with a long notched stick in his hand, we knew he was off to measure a body for the coffin.

They had a little grey Fergy tractor, which was used to cart the muck out to the field in winter, and in the summer, they would mow the meadows for hay.

This is the village shop on the left, a farm cottage next along and the third one along was the White Cottage the smallholding which was also the wheelwrights shop. On the extreme right is the village pub the Holly Bush


The White Cottage. [ Or The Smallholding ]
This cottage opposite the pub was occupied by Mr and Mrs Clark. It was a small holding of about forty acres, as on all the farms on the estate, it had some close land, and some on the meadows down the Moss lane, and some over the railway down the Moor lane. This house had only one main room, and a scullery, then a lean-to on the back of the house, this was used as a dairy to cool and store the milk churns over night, until the milk man came the following morning. Upstairs it had two bedrooms, and the only privy was a little brick and tile loo, under a bush, down the garden path. In this house they brought up a family of six children.

The new workshop that Jim amd Bill built is on the left, the two chimneys above were the two new council houses that they lived in later in life. The two chimneys in the centre are that of the village shop,(looking from its rear), and below on the right was the original workshop that their old man used from the 1900's

Old Harry Clark, I can only just remember, not a very tall man, and quite round in his later years. He was a wheelwright by trade, and worked in a low tin roofed shed down below the wooden pole hay barn. He was a man who enjoyed a joke, and quite mischievous in a nice way. It was said that when bagged fertiliser first came out, Charlie Finnimore, [of Yews Farm] sent a new man to spread it on the meadows under the Ashes Wood. It turned out he had spread it on one of Harry's small fields down there. Later Mr Finnemore realised the mistake, and went round to see Harry for recompense, only to be told very politely that he did not want it, and that he could send the man down the following morning to pick it up again, as he did not mind at all!.

Mrs Clark, Harry's wife, could only just get about, and getting a very old lady, like Harry she was quite round, and had her own chair by the fire where she could easily reach the kettle, without having to move. In fact as a child I was amazed that when Mrs Clark was sitting down she seemed to have no knees. Her part in the carpentry business, over the years, was to line the coffins that Harry made, for the local people, who were then buried in St Chad's churchyard.
They had six children, Henry [called Harry] the oldest, Jim, Bill the youngest, and three daughters in between. Henry worked for the post office as a postman, and travelled to work in a little old Austin 7 car, the one that had a straight up windscreen and a starting handle permanently out in front. Henry was the smallest of all the family, and walked with a heavy limp; this was due to him having a short leg and had a boot with a four or five inch sole.

Henry lived with his wife Nell in the cottage next to Lower Cooksland Farm gate, on the other side of the lane was a small garage for his car. Nell worked up at Cooksland House for Major Eld, and her father lived in a small room, or lean-to, on the end of a house on the end of Smithy Lane. He was Bill Ecclestone a very old man when I was a child; he helped around the different farms when needed. His worn-out body seamed to lean forward, almost forming a loop under his bracers, where his chest had been. He wore corduroy trousers that were tied below the knee with string, and old boots that had worn out laces. The shirts worn in them days all had loose collars, his shirt at work had no collar or stud to hold the neck hole together, and looked as though it had seen many washes [ and missed a few as well]. He lived an independent life in his small room, but well looked after by his daughter Nell.

Jim was the tallest of the family, and when married lived in the second house up the Coton lane [turn left at the west end of the village second house on the right]. This had a craft, [Crofters have crafts- small field] where he kept hens and reared a few pigs, I think it had two pig sty's. He worked as carpenter for the estate along with Eric Kilford who was the builder bricklayer; Eric built up Kilfords the Building firm and employed quite a lot of men. Jim took over from his father, when his father became too old to continue, having learned all the skills needed to become a wheelwright, and all the traditional tools that had built up over the years for that trade.
When the Cumbers council houses were built, in the 1950s, Jim moved into No10, and Bill moved into No9, right opposite the farm and workshop. By this time Jim was full time, having taken over from "The old Chap". Jim and Bill built a new workshop, with double doors that would lock, a great deal higher and bigger than the one the old chap used. A complete farm wagon could be built and painted all indoors, and a good deal lighter as well.
As I said Jim was tall, all of six foot, but I expect that working all his earlier days in low cottages, and always ducking his head, he carried his head slightly forward, giving him a slight hump on his shoulders. [Not quite as tall as he should be], they all had caps on in them days, and Jim had his pipe always in his teeth, not always lit. It was St Julian tobacco, that he smoked, and I got as much pleasure, from the smell of the smoke, as he did smoking it.
You get the ambiance of a room when you walk into it, so you did from Jim's workshop, with the smoke from his pipe, or the new cut oak shavings, or the fresh new paint when he's finishing off a job.
  His pipe spent that much time, in his teeth, that it wore his teeth away in that one place, to the extent that he could clench his teeth tightly, and the pipe would still hang comfortably. In normal talk, he would talk with the pipe in place. But if some cussing was to be done, it would be a prodding motion with the pipe in his hand. But more often than not it was tongue in cheek cussing.
It was always a big joke when Jim and his wife Minnie, went on holiday for a week to the seaside with friends. Minnie would have Jim move all the furniture, to dust and polish, "even behind the bl---- wardrobes had to be cobwebbed" he went on, in case someone had to look in, while they were away. Minnie was a big friend of my mothers, and was very proud of her new house, number 10 The Cumbers. She was also keen on her flowers garden, and front lawn. Jim had to do the lawn mowing and dug and planted the veg patch. His comment to these jobs was "Why didn't they build the B motorway across my front lawn, or at least tarmac it" he went on, "I could sweep it off and paint it green each spring and save all this work."

Bill, the youngest of the family, looked after the cows. Up until the 1950s they were hand milked, and then they had their first milking machine. Then followed a few years later with a bulk milk tank, they stopped picking milk up in churns shortly after that. Bill had 14 cows that was the maximum that the sheds would hold. They were well looked after, and heavy milkers, and nearly always turned out for the night onto the craft opposite the Holly Bush Pub. During the day they went down through the ford, to the banky field at the end of Moor lane, or the field at the top of the road bank on the right. At the ford the cows came from all directions, Village Farm cows came down the bank to the ford the up the Moor lane, Church Farm cows went down the same way as Bills. On the village green, Green Farm cows would be going out, and also Yews Farm cows went across the green to the Moss Lane.
On a few occasions Bill would have to encourage his cows to move across the path of another herd, or sometimes meet another herd head on. He always had a long nut stick, and always on his bike when on the road with the cows, and when a problem like this came up, he would get off his bike, and gently tap his cows on through the opposing "team ". He rarely lost any or picked any extra up, the cows knowing there own fields or sheds.
In his younger days Bill was in the village cricket team, often he was wicket keeper, then when in batting he would hit and run, and really liven the proceedings up, scoring some very quick runs, or getting himself or his colleague run out. The cricket square was in the middle of the present village football field. It was a football field then as well. During the week the cricket square was fenced off, and Bills cows would graze round it.

Bill in this picture is the small man fifth from the left behind the gentlemen with the bowler hat.


Always a joker he would examine a persons ploughing, to see if it was strait. If it was one of us younger ones, and it was crooked, he would be relentless in telling anyone who would listen, as to how many dead rabbits he had picked up. Telling them how they had broken their necks, running round the bends in the furrows. Another wease he had was when someone had spent a day working hard at cleaning or sweeping up, he would say "That looks better, which have you done ?", then watch for the reaction, then laugh.
Only a small man, he had a job to reach the floor when astride his bike, and with his Woodbine lit, and his nut stick across his handle bars, set off promptly at three fifteen to fetch the cows in. As long as everyone else was at the regular time, the herds would not clash.

They had a little grey Fergy tractor, which was used to cart the muck out to the field in winter, and in the summer, they would mow the meadows for hay. Then when they wanted timber for carpentry, they would be off down to Henry Venables timber yard on the tractor, sometimes for wide elm boards, still with the bark edges, for trailer floors, or oak for making gates, or timber for making a coffin.

If anyone died in the village, Jim and Bill would be called. I remember one occasion when Bill was not available, Jim called my brother and I to help him lay out a neighbour who had died that morning. The first thing we were asked to do was to lift the pantry door off its hinges, and put it on the floor and  helped lift the deceased onto it the door to lay her out,then up onto the table, this was a normal procedure as there is not much room in a lot of cottages, and pantry door or scullery door had hinges like a gate, and could easily be lifted off.
When Jim was walking off down the village, with a long notched stick in his hand, we knew he was off to measure a body for the coffin. People did not have long measuring tapes, as we have now, so a long measuring stick was used. [Carpenters usually had a wooden two foot rule]. If you are a person living in one of the Seighford cottages, you may never realize what your old pantry door had been used for, besides blocking a hole in the wall.
After having got the measurements required from the body, Jim would proceed to make the coffin. This would take all afternoon, and he would work into the evening to get the job done. On occasions Eric Bennion would call with his car, to transport the coffin to the deceased's house, discreetly covered with a blanket. His car had a large carrier rack on the back the right size. I heard a story about Eric, carting a coffin about on the back of his car, when food rationing was on.
There were strict restrictions enforced by the police, usually by the local bobby on a bike based at Great Bridgeford the next village. Eric, Jim and Bill had to move a pig that had just been killed at one of their houses, to someone who wanted it, but shouldn't have it because of rationing. So the obvious way was in a coffin, covered up on the back of Eric's car, and at night. I believe they passed the police but were never suspected.
Of coarse all the men of working age at that time, were in the "Home Guard" based in Great Bridgeford village hall. No end of contraband food exchange hands without a ration book in sight, not all of them worked on farms or were farmers.

Owd Fred

A verse relating to the wheelwright will have to follow on another blog so look out for it.

The consumer's side of a coffin lid is never ostentatious

Stanishaw J. Lec  (1909 - 1966)

Never discourage anyone........ who continually makes progress, no matter how slow. Plato (347BC-427 BC)

Father always kept Ayrshire Cows 29

Father always kept Ayrshire cows, but there was just the odd Friesian, which, when asked why, he would say tongue in cheek "Oh we just keep her at the end of the shed to wash the shed down with, its blue milk, no butterfat."

This was how The Beeches Farm looked years ago when we were kids. The building on the right in the back ground was where all the grain was stored in the loft and milled or crushed in the shed below, it also had the mongol pulper and straw chopper, from the days when it was all carried round the sheds to the cows.
Father and his neighbour sometime went up to Scotland to a breed sale and would buy about twenty incalf Ayrshire heifers between them, enough to fill a cattle lorry.
We would get a phone call in advance about how many to expect and to prepare a suitable shed for them to be dropped in. Quite often the wagon would arrive back here before dad and his mate, at two in the morning.They put up in some digs over two nights and got home about lunch time the following day.
I recall that they had bought the first dehorned cattle in the area, and everyone was inquisitive to see these Ayrshire cattle with no horns. It was not long after that that he had the horns cut off all the cows and dehorned all calves as they were born. It was a gruesome job, and performed in the stalls where they were tied up, the vet tied string tightly round the base of the cows horns as a tourniquet, then used four foot shears to clip them off in one swift cut. It took two or three men to close the shears on the older cows, and on odd ones where they had cut close too the string, the string slipped off and blood spurted up in a fine spray up into the rafters of the cowshed.
Talk about rivers of blood. After a day or two the wounds dried up, but it was noticeable that the cows that had always done the bullying now got a very soar head when they butted the others.

Father ran a dairy herd

Father ran a dairy herd, of mainly Ayrshire cows,
These were housed traditionally, tied in stalls in rows,
Brought down for milking, had to be tied with a chain,
Each knew there own stall, a left and a right contain.

Cows were used to standing, to their own side of the stall,
They would part to let you in between when you call,
A bowl full of corn, and in with the bucket and stool,
Milked by hand while they're eating, was good job when it's cool.

He was one of the first to try, a new fangled milking machine,
A vacuum pipe was installed, new motor and pump had to be,
Four unit buckets and a spare, four cows milked nice and clean,
This was quicker by far, once the cows got used to routine.

Milk was cooled in the dairy, with water from the well,
The dairy collected it every day, had to be cool to sell,
The fridge was a copper heat exchanger hanging on the wall,
On top a Dee shaped receiving pan, fresh milk we poured it all.

Well water runs on the inside the fridge, milk run down outside,
Churns were filled for the dairy, to a measured mark inside,
Labelled with where it's to go, at one time went by train,
Now a lorry picks up the churns, from a churn stand on the lane.

Thirty more years he milked this way, in churns milk was poured,
Restricted now by the number of stalls, yields he did record,
Bulk tank came and a pipeline too, milk tanker every day,
This took Father to retirement, very modern to do it this way.

Owd Fred

Father always reared all his heifer calves, and when AI first came about he used it on his best thirty cows and his own bull on the rest, the bull calves going off down to the market when old enough. Calves reared were started on their mothers milk and continued on cows milk for a couple of weeks when gradually they were introduced onto gruel, which was mainly Linseed, and this had to be scalded before you could feed it to the calves. There was no powdered milk equivalent available then and gruel was the best option so the maximum milk could go to the dairy.

Linseed Gruel for Calves

Always reared our own replacements, for the dairy herd,
Soon weaned off mother's milk, linseed gruel prepared,
Gruel it had to be scalded, to kill the enzymes off,
Otherwise the calves would scour, and then begin to cough.

Just a week on full cow's milk, then started to feed them gruel
When they were a month old, it was the only fuel,
Along with a bit of cow corn, and a rack with meadow hay,
Reared, a bit pot bellied, when out they're turned on grass day.

A couple of years rearing and growing then put them to the bull,
They will be replacements, for the ones we have to cull,
Calved down at three years old, to be a well grown cow,
Years in the dairy herd, good feet and health allow.

Owd Fred

As it has always been, there was dairy inspections, and these came when you least expected them, but the time to work seriously at cleaning up was on a very wet day.
The old white wash was scraped off the walls with garden hoe's along with the splashes of dried on cow muck, and a new coat of lime wash applied, this included the dairy where the milk was cooled and run into churns.

A Wet Day Job

On days when it's too wet work outside, find a job indoors,
Grab a couple of garden hoes; scrape cowshed walls and floors,
A good soaking and scrubbing, get the cow muck off,
Where the cows have splashed, and had a dam good cough.

Out with a small tin bath, bag of quick line pour,
Mix with water till a thin paste, ten minuets stand before,
Brushed up the walls, with an old house brush soft,
Gleaming white and clean, right up to the old hayloft.

Spot check by the dairy inspector, they turn up out of the blue,
Just when you don't expect, look at the sheds right through,
The milk house where milk is cooled gets same job done,
Cows wary of the new décor, inspectors' inspection won.

Owd Fred

Molasses, has come back into fashion in the last twenty years or so, but when we were kids father had a forty gallon drum in the corn shed on a block so he could run off some when it was needed. The drum was half used and thick with mill dust, and the lower small bung was only finger tight. We used to take this bung out and wait for the treacle to slowly ooze out and get fingers full of the stuff before replacing the bung

Black Molasses in the Barn

I Remember at the Beeches, way back in the barn,
A great big forty gallon drum, on a block away from harm,
It contained black molasses; a good half of it was used,
With hot water mixed, and spread on oats when they were bruised.

Take the bung out and wait a bit, for it to slowly flow,
We all liked to have a taste, dad said it'd help us grow,
A finger full and then another, it was lov-ely and sweet,
Left your hands all sticky, you couldn't be discrete.

We had plenty over the time, but still a lot unused,
Mother said it would move us, but father he was amused,
He said a good clean out, every now and then,
Would tone us up, and help us all, to grow to big strong men.

Owd Fred

A quarrel is like buttermilk, the more you stir it, the more sour it grows(Bolivian Proverb)