Farming Talk: Tired out from catching calves for de-budding

The seasons move on and this year's April showers are so cold. These frosts have slowed the early growth which the crops were showing. The grass was starting to grow in front of some of our sheep, but now they are making a real mark in it.

We have one ewe left to lamb and one cow to calf. Lambing has gone well on the whole, though we will need to invest in a vaccination programme for next season. Calving went well, the Stabiliser bull is proving his worth on the ease of calving front. We did have one problem, a breach presentation out of a half-bred Stabiliser heifer, but we can't really blame the bull for that. She was the only heifer that we saw calving.

We have turned the cows and calves out this week, but we've purchased some new fodder feeders to fill with straw, so that they always have plenty to eat. I think we may be feeding concentrates to the cows for most of this summer, unless the weather changes.

We have been selling tegs (last season's lambs) this month and receiving a good price – indeed a better price than the ones which we are selling through our farm shop. The buoyant export market is making home produced and marketed lamb difficult to sell.

British shoppers have been used to meat being a relatively cheap part of their shopping baskets due to government policies of support. We are now nearing a world market, though some support is offered in different areas of the world. British shoppers need to get used to paying the true value for their food, which is going to be difficult.

At the end of World War Two our government struggled to feed the population and incentives were introduced so that farmers would produce much-needed food. This also resulted in the true price rarely being achieved, a situation which we are only now coming out of for some produce.

I am nearly as tired as my wife Kim is this evening. She is nearly 37 weeks pregnant, but I have been de-budding calves today, so that we could turn them out. Most years we have maybe one third of our calves which have horns growing, this year there was about three quarters which needed to be de-budded.

I therefore feel very battered after catching 48 calves, some of which were born six weeks ago. Kim is still working though she's finishing at the end of next week. We've still got lots to get ready for our new arrival, and I have been told to stop comparing her to livestock.

David Morgan, Strefford Hall Farm and Farm Shop, Craven Arms