Paula Hynes: Rivers running free as Storm Amy hits
Milk recording on the Hynes farm last week.
The rain returned with a bang as storm Amy hit and it certainly was a miserable 48 hours. Sadly, West Cork seemed to suffer a lot worse than we did, with many rivers bursting their banks, roads impassable and so much land flooded.
It is next to impossible for rivers to handle that much rain in a short space of time. Our farm is bounded by a river with a smaller tributary running through part of the land.
This year, the County Council did fantastic work in clearing debris all along the smaller river to help reduce flooding. They worked closely with landowners to ensure the work was done in conjunction with what everyone was happy with.
This week, we had a visit from the council engineer to view the work, which needed to be completed by the end of September. It is always great to chat with someone who understands the importance of us all working together to improve water quality while also balancing that with the challenges of climate change and flooding.
Twenty years ago, an excavator would have spent the summer working its way up the river at great pace. Times have changed and there is now much more awareness of the importance of protecting riverbeds. Nowadays, the excavator cannot enter the river and only works from the riverbank.
We have seen an owl on the farm a couple of times over the last three years, and sightings were always at night. Recently, while I was in the UK, Pete was bringing in the cows at 6am and there was our resident owl, content as could be, sitting on a fallen tree and taking no notice of the sound and lights of the quad.
We had been contemplating clearing the fallen tree, but now that we know it serves a purpose and is a safe area for the owl, we will happily leave it in place. Given how long the owl has been living on the farm, it would be a shame to interfere with its territory.
We have never seen the boundary rivers at such low levels for so long this year, but the heavy rain raised the river level over 5ft in 12 hours when the rain hit this week.
Thankfully, the swollen tributary had somewhere to go, with no blockages, and thanks to the good work of the Co Council, a lot of land remained unflooded.
Denis, our Munster Bovine milk recorder, also visited this week to complete another milk recording. It will help give a clearer picture of the SCC for the freshly calved cows and also create a picture for how we will deal with the spring calvers when we start to dry off cows.
We will complete another milk recording in early November and then start to dry off any early spring calvers
We have been busy packing for the National Dairy Show, gathering up feed supplies to ensure the team are well fed while away from home. It is a big task to transport all the feed, supplies and animals back to Millstreet. Two trailer loads of feed and show gear, the show team taking up another four cattle trailer loads, and then all the humans need to be fed back there as well, so the mini kitchen has been packed.
Katherine has arrived in from the UK, Becky and Richard have been busy clipping, and Pauric arrives to help on Thursday. With 14 animals at the show, it is all hands on deck. Richard’s sons Ben and Charlie will also be helping and showing with us — they know the heifers well from being at shows all year with us.
We have four Jersey milkers competing: Kali and Kasey, both no strangers to the show scene; their dam Kiki, who will be having her first outing to a show five weeks freshly calved; and Potterswalls Victorious Cash VG87 two-year-old, also on her first show outing.
We also have four junior Jerseys: Kaira, Kalani, Khaleesi — all of whom have been successful for us — and Potterswalls Knox Glamour, who will make her debut.
We have six junior Holsteins on the team: Rouge and Jagerbomb, who compete in the same class; our November-born Sidekick Acclaim heifer; and three heifers in the December–January born heifer class.
It will be a hectic few days showing, but everyone on the team knows their job. Pete and I get to compete alongside each other in the Jersey heifer in milk class, and hopefully, the hard work will pay off and we will bring home a few rosettes.
Cows are in great condition and grass growth has been superb with mild temperatures and good ground conditions. We didn’t extend the grazing rotation in late August or September and pushed ahead with grazing the cows as regrowths were so good. I think extending the grazing rotation would have been a mistake, as it would have led to higher grass covers and slower regrowth.
Calendar farming really is obsolete now, as weather patterns have changed so much. How we farm has become very area-specific — not just different parts of Ireland, but even area-specific within counties. Parts of East Cork were struggling with grass growth in August due to drought, and farmers were still supplementing with high levels of concentrate ration in September. Meanwhile, other parts of Cork had an abundance of grass. East Cork farmers welcome any rain now, while West Cork deals with flooding.
That scenario is exactly why farmers get so frustrated with being asked by policymakers to farm out of a book or from a calendar.
We have been busy packing for the National Dairy Show, gathering up feed supplies to ensure the team are well fed while away from home. It is a big task to transport all the feed, supplies and animals back to Millstreet.
Two trailer loads of feed and show gear, the show team taking up another four cattle trailer loads, and then all the humans need to be fed back there as well, so the mini kitchen has been packed.
Katherine has arrived in from the UK, Becky and Richard have been busy clipping, and Pauric arrives to help on Thursday. With 14 animals at the show, it is all hands on deck. Richard’s sons Ben and Charlie will also be helping and showing with us — they know the heifers well from being at shows all year with us.
We have four Jersey milkers competing: Kali and Kasey, both no strangers to the show scene; their dam Kiki, who will be having her first outing to a show five weeks freshly calved; and Potterswalls Victorious Cash VG87 two-year-old, also on her first show outing.
We also have four junior Jerseys: Kaira, Kalani, Khaleesi — all of whom have been successful for us — and Potterswalls Knox Glamour, who will make her debut.
We have six junior Holsteins on the team: Rouge and Jagerbomb, who compete in the same class; our November-born Sidekick Acclaim heifer; and three heifers in the December–January born heifer class.
It will be a hectic few days showing, but everyone on the team knows their job. Pete and I get to compete alongside each other in the Jersey heifer in milk class, and hopefully, the hard work will pay off and we will bring home a few rosettes.
