Paula Hynes: Keeping my ear to the ground

A camera crew on the farm, and why we need a 'Super Junior Minister for Calendar Farming' - it's all go for our Paula this week.

The Ear To The Ground crew filming on the Hynes farm as the cold snap arrived

Well, we survived the cold snap, and we did get away a lot easier than parts of North Cork; luckily, we were able to milk cows as normal every day, and what a difference a week makes as it has been mild and fine all week. 

As the cold snap struck, it also coincided with the Ear To The Ground crew arriving on farm for a day's filming. The episode will be aired on Thursday,  January 23 at 7pm on RTÉ One. 

It was good to meet the crew again as we previously had them on farm in 2017. I guess they, too, were amazed at how grown-up Georgie has gotten in the past few years.

We also had two cows calve while ETTG were here filming - two smashing heifer calves, one of which is by Tarmac and the other by Legit.

The herd isn’t dominated by show cows, and we also had a heifer calve in with a fine bull calf with an EBI of 348, so it will be interesting to see how he genotypes as everything is DNA registered here now.

The Holsteins may have tried to take over calving duty, but the Jerseys regained control of the calving pens as a Judo heifer calved with a Chocochip heifer calf. She was joined on the same morning by Kasey calving. 

Some of you will remember Kasey is the fir st- lactation Jersey we were showing last season with much success. Amongst the show prep, we served Kasey and she held first service, she calved in February 2024 so it is nice to have her calving a little earlier this year and actually calved over 10 days before her due date.

She had a fine, healthy heifer calf sired by Chocochip again this year, which happens to be a full sister to Khaleesi who won so much for Georgie in 2024. 

There is a nice selection of Jersey heifer calves now for Georgie to show this year and also some really exciting Jersey heifers in milk; I’m a little excited already to see how Dream is progressing in such a short space of time, but these milkers have a long way to go before show season. 

There is a little lull in calving, time to catch our breaths or at least have a full night's sleep. We have a lot of Charolais calves due from next week onwards and thankfully we also have returning customers for calves, so a lot of beef calves are presold already. 

It is always fantastic to see customers return, lovely to meet them from year to year, know that they are happy with last year's calves and most importantly that both we and they can make a few euro from the calves.

We need a 'Super Junior Minister for Calendar Farming'

With the milder dry weather, the milking cows have been grazing away by day; it is great to get them out of the shed and get some exercise into them, they have been so content out in the paddock, happy to lie out after grazing and once they come back in it is simply a case of filling their bellies and lying down. 

The important thing for me when grazing grass with cows early is also to be growing grass so with the slurry season now open, we had the contractors in spreading slurry. Some may view spreading slurry in January as not a good idea, so many have an opinion on nitrates and water quality.

The reality for us as farmers is we cannot farm off calendars; we look at weather forecasts and local ground conditions, and we make decisions based on reality. 

With ground conditions ideal on some paddocks, a dry forecast and soil temperatures ripe for growing grass, we made the decision to get slurry out on paddocks which haven’t seen rain for five days now since it was spread.

Who knows what the weather for the spring holds, and better to be spreading now in good conditions than having no option but to spread in a month's time even if it is spilling rain from the sky. 

Our contractor uses low-emission slurry spreading which also helps to reduce emissions. With a new government now being formed, perhaps our team of Ministers for Agriculture might remember that the weather varies from year to year, it varies from week to week and in reality, we as farmers always farm to best practice because we know our farms. 

If I had one wish amongst all the Ministerial appointments, it would be that there was a Super Junior Minister for Calendar Farming appointed and they would use their super junior powers to realise that climate change has changed the weather, changed the seasons and they would use their term in Government to abolish calendar farming and work with farmers. 

Life doesn’t always grant us our wishes though so it is more likely we will get extra grant funding for concrete and slurry storage so we can store it until March and spread it when the weather is wet in March and cows have shredded paddocks in the January and February of a wet Spring in the future rather than a dry December. With the farm being fully soil sampled recently, we will at least be able to target lower P and K fields during the year.

As busy as we are at home on the farm, Becky is also getting very busy in Australia. She headed to International Dairy Week early this week with the cows and heifers, with a team of 15 animals in total, she will have her hands full for what is a very long show as she will be there for 10 days. 

She begins showing on Sunday morning Irish time in the showmanship which she won last year. The youth show takes place on the Monday with the main breed classes taking place for the following three days and she will be showing many dairy breeds at the show. 

I can’t believe she is gone from home over a month already and before I know it, she will be returning home in a few weeks, for now I’ll keep preparing for calving season and ensuring the yard is tidy as we have a group of International visitors visiting in early February.