Archived News

7th December 2011

It’s a cold blustery day, excellent for blowing away the cobwebs and bringing out the woolly hat for the first time this winter! We’ve seen a couple of snowflakes in the last two days and I’m keeping a close eye on the weather forecast; just in case the wind changes direction and pushes snow southwards.

Due to a massive Thames Water leak in Abinger a few weeks ago, we brought the calving herd into the barn at Paddington where the cows all calved safely. Unfortunately we still can’t turn the cattle back out into the field due to the bags of effluent that Thames Water have just left sitting on the pasture; I’d have thought H&S legislation  would ensure that human waste be removed from site immediately?  The last of the calves was born on Thursday, so this morning we moved  the herd from the barn onto 35 acres south of Hackhurst; Path Field, Kingsland West and Kingsland East.

We haven’t had the best of luck with bulls this year; beginning with a bull that was infertile and losing six months or so in the calving programme and struggling to find a replacement bull at short notice. In the short term I hired Park Phoenix, a bull with good pedigree who served the cows well. 

However the belts on the calves have on the whole, been a disaster. 

Two calves have no belt at all, they are jet black calves; others have a reasonable band under the tummy which then  narrows down to a minimal strip of white hair or no white hair over the back and one of the heifers has four white feet! 

This could well be a genetic throw back from many generations ago when some breeders used black bulls to improve blood lines, although there’s no sign of a black bull in the listed pedigree of park phoenix.

Some consider that the combination of a particular bull with a herd of cows, may throw odd markings one year and be perfectly normal the next.

If the belt is good and encircling the calf then it can be registered with the Belted Galloway Society, otherwise it could be sold or will be reared for beef.  This is another glitch in the breeding programme which should be increasing our pedigree herd and improving the breed.