This Farming Life - New Arrivals

The year’s new arrivals have begun at Castlefarm

We arrived back from our annual holidays on 2nd of February to nine calves that had been born early. Needless to say, Andrew who works with us full time on the farm was delighted to see us back. Although we started out the month milking 18 cows, each day brings at least one fresh calver that adds to the milking total. Feeding calves can take quite a lot of time and patience. Although this is not my favourite job, for the next 2 months I am the chief calf feeder.

When a calf is born the first thing we do is feed them with 2 litres of colostrum, the cow’s first milk, which is rich in antibodies and nutrients. Quite likely the calf will have drunk from the mum, but we need to make sure it gets fed as quickly as possible so don’t leave things to chance. The easiest way to get this feed into the calf is to use a stomach tube. Don’t worry its not uncomfortable for the calf and only takes about 2 minutes.

The cow licks her calf clean and very quickly the calf is on its feet. After a day we separate the cow and calf. The calf is tagged for identification purposes and is registered with the Department of Agriculture. This spring we are also tagging for BVD, a disease which while not harmful to humans is a disease the Department of Agriculture wants to eradicate.

We keep all female calves, which will become the future Castlefarm milking herd. Male calves are sold as soon as we have a market for them. After 6 weeks with the cows the bull will now be put out to grass on his own. Any cow that has not gone in calf to AI or the bull will be sold off at the end of the summer.

Castlefarm Shop opens every week normally on a Friday or Saturday but you need to sign up to facebook, emails or text alerts to keep up to date of opening days and farm specials.

To receive our newsletter and news opening days and farm produce by email please contact Castlefarm Shop, Narraghmore, Athy, Co Kildare, Email jenny@castlefarmshop.ie, log onto www.castlefarmshop.ie or telephone 087-6785269

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