‘Once Christmas dinner is over, I look forward to the calving’
Calving season is upon us and, with an estimated two million calves destined to be delivered on our nation’s farms per year, it’s only fair to assume that the jack will be busy.
Of course, behind every calving jack stands a farmer, who will also be busy for the next few months.
With little opportunities for rest, even during the night, it can be a trying time. But rewarding too.
The feeling of job satisfaction that goes along with the task of calving can be hard to beat.
Joe Collins is a dairy farmer from Lissarda, Co Cork, married to Rosalie, with daughters Maria and Rebecca. This spring, he will be calving 70 cows and heifers.
Joe has a keen interest in breeding pedigree Holstein Friesians. In recent years, his efforts in developing his Collinsfort herd have been paying off, with local agricultural show victories. His IHFA-registered Collinsfort herd is 100% AI bred, Joe having trained in DIY-AI.
I called to see him on his farm to find out if he was ready for the onslaught of the calving season. Does he look forward to what lies ahead at this time of the year?
“I’ll put it to you this way, Denis,” Joe says with a smile, “once the Christmas dinner is over, the next thing I look forward to is the calving.”
“I look forward to it because of the young calves that will be appearing on the farm. There’s a sense of anticipation with each calving. When they arrive, you are checking to see if they are in full health, and wondering if the latest addition is a bull or a heifer.
“Of course the work is hard, we all know that. But overall, calving cows is something I honestly enjoy, and I believe it is something that most farmers look forward to, even though some would be slow to admit it.”
It is being claimed by some these days that calving in the small hours, between midnight and 6am, has been almost eliminated on many Irish farms, thanks to the introduction of night-time feeding for at least a month before calving. The theory is that such a practice encourages cows to calve during daylight hours. Some farmers I spoke to recently have taken the practice on board, while others said they tried it and didn’t think it worked as well as it was being touted. One farmer dismissed it completely, saying it was a case of something that reads well on paper, but doesn’t really work in practice.
I asked Joe if this night-time feeding regime was something that he had tried or would consider in the future? “No,” he replied, “I wouldn’t be that interested in it. I would prefer not to change the normal feeding routine that the cows have, particularly when coming close to calving.”
So how about those sleepless nights then, I enquire, how do you cope with them? “Well, the nights don’t bother me at all, really. What happens here is, when a cow is coming close to calving, I will put her into a calving pen and then, last thing each night, I will give a ramble around the yard to see if all is OK before going to bed. Then I set the clock according to what I feel might be necessary during the night.
“Last year, I invested in a calving camera, and it is now positioned over the calving pen. It is of the wireless variety, as the yard is a bit away from the house. The camera was one of the best purchases I ever made. I would highly recommend it to other farmers.”
Many farmers, I put it to Joe, complain about the calving camera, and say that the cow can sometimes place herself just in a position where the camera does not focus in on her, and they still have to check her in person. Is this a problem that he has experienced? “Perhaps this was so in the past, but I have found no problem like that. Calving cameras, like all electronic devices, have come a long way in the last few years. The camera we have seems to have a good wide angle and covers the whole pen.
“The picture too that we receive back in the house is very sharp and clear. So no, I don’t have any problems with the camera.
“In fact, I believe a good camera can save a farmer a whole lot of trouble. It saves the farmer the trouble of hopping out of bed and running out into the yard maybe several times during the night.
And it can avoid having a wife complaining about her freezing husband when he finally returns from his trip around the yard.”
The vet will probably make an appearance on Joe’s farm sometime over the coming months, but the hope is that he will be a rare visitor.
With knowledge that comes from experience, many dairy farmers will take on and succeed in coping with a whole range of difficult births.
But of course as with every occupation in life, there are hazards, and things don’t always go according to plan. Last January, Joe suffered a setback when a farm accident put him out of action for the entire calving season. While being brought to the yard for milking, an injured cow fell backwards and collapsed onto Joe, breaking his leg. The break put him out of action for months.
In order to get Joe back on his feet, surgery was required. Fortunately there was no long term damage done, and he is back to full health a year on. “My broken leg kept me out of the yard for three months. I was back milking cows in April, but that was as much as I could do at that stage,” he says.
“What I especially missed was not be able to go out into the yard and see what was going on.
“My wife Rosalie and my two daughters, Maria and Rebecca, are always great to help out on the farm whenever they can. But I suppose what came out of the break was a great sense of how good neighbours and friends can be.
“These days you mightn’t see your neighbours from one end of the month to the next, but when you are in trouble, they are great to rally around. Great help and a great tonic for the soul.”
It’s hard to keep a good man down, and Joe Collins is back this spring, helping his Collinsfort herd through the calving season, completely taken up in a job that he thoroughly enjoys — like thousands of other farmers throughout the country.
