Our status as a closed herd makes weaning slightly easier than on most holdings, though some might see our actual weaning technique as risky. When the time to wean arrives, cows and calves are housed. We wean one or two groups of 10-15 cows and calves at a time.

Calves are separated from their mothers and moved to adjacent pens where ample high quality silage and a concentrate allowance of roughly 1.5kg per head awaits. Once daily, moving to once every couple of days, the calves are let back into their mothers to suckle. At complete weaning, the animals are moved to a separate shed and the chorus begins.

It isn’t over until 20 weanling bulls keep you awake all night.

Vaccinations

We don’t vaccinate for respiratory disease, and haven’t for years. We dose for parasites and that gets us by. We feel that stress levels must be kept to an absolute minimum.

Weaning indoors isn’t done on every Irish suckler farm. However, in clean sheds with good airflow it can be done quite successfully.

Pneumonia

The "big three" pneumonia-causing strains are IBR, RSV and Pi3, all of which can be vaccinated against. Local vets are now speaking of a fourth, more sinister type of respiratory disease called mycoplasma that is beginning to rear its ugly head. This strain lacks a cell wall and thus cannot be treated. Fingers crossed none of us experience it this winter.

Cases of pneumonia have been rare with us, though there were a couple last winter. The unsettled weather brought with it an extra burden on the animals. If I remember correctly the animals in question were weaned almost two weeks when we noticed a slight blow coupled with drooping ears and long periods without rumination.

The thermometer doesn’t lie but often it’s difficult to pick them. I recall bringing a comrade out with a sick-looking animal to keep him calm. Once in the crush, I took his temperature and it was also high (we generally treat anything in excess of 39.5 degrees celsius). Slight panic set in and the whole pen was taken out. I think we ended up giving hexasol to two and the original patient required something stronger, metacam and zuprevo possibly.

Reseed

I’m eyeing up the once problematic reseeded (you’ll recall my first article) which has been transformed into a near perfect pasture by the sheep. It may be the perfect place to send calves once total separation from their mothers comes about. It’s well sheltered and close to the yard. A couple of nice frosts between now and then should kill off lots of the pneumonia bugs too.

Here’s to content calves, chewing the cud upon inspection every morning between now and Christmas.