Archived News

21st November 2007

With cattle safely back near home for their winter keep and another twelve off to Chitty's abattoir today, things feel a little more like normal.  The weaned calves have been moved to West Lane which has allowed room for more calves to be bought in.

In the last couple of days 26 young stock have arrived at Manor Farm and are on the automatic milk feeder and another 15, already weaned calves have arrived.  We would usually buy calves at about 12 days old and they go straight onto milk, but due to the movement restrictions which were in place over previous months it has not been possible for the dairy farmers to sell and move their calves off farm and so they have reached the weaning stage before arriving here.

This has caused some logistical problems and the weaned calves have gone straight into a large barn at Coast Hill rather than started off here at home.

On Saturday, the day after the weaned calves had arrived, my father in law, Fred appeared in the office to tell me that a calf had escaped from the barn at Coast Hill and was exploring the adjacent Byway!

Two motorcyclists on the Byway and a neighbour had kindly gone to head the calf off, preventing it from going onto the road. Amanda, her son Luke and I added to the numbers and guided the calf back towards the barn, adding more hurdles to a gate where we thought the calf may possibly have managed to escape from.

Despite the additional hurdles the calf was out again within half an hour that morning and then again at 4.15pm when I had was returning from the swimming pool with six children.  The boys were fascinated to see this young calf happily feeding from the trough - but outside the barn!  Every small gap that this calf could possibly squeeze through was wired up, or so we thought, because on Sunday morning he managed one more adventure. 

Here is an individual character who we're unlikely to forget, it will be interesting to watch his progress during the next couple of years! Back