by Alice Carey
An early farming memory is shot through with outrage. The bald man with the ink brand was walloping our pigs. The fact that I was helping herd them past him onto a lorry bound for the local abattoir was rather beyond my five year old notions of moral hazard. No matter: I was soon distracted by the thrill of our spaniel gulping down an entire nest of baby mice in the feed room.
Changes came to the farm over the years, but death remained pretty much at the heart of things. Orphan lambs received as Easter presents were sung to and bottle-fed till they were ready for slaughter. I’d named mine Dumpling; it was all part of the plan. The next generation spaniel developed a taste for my small brother’s guinea pigs, whose remains, if salvageable, were buried in the vegetable garden. Standing amidst a drift of feathers and limp-necked carcasses one festive morning, I realised that the fox had visited the henhouse just as sure as Father Christmas had called on the farmhouse. My pre-teen vegetarianism, announced on the day of our annual cock-pheasant shoot, lasted all of four hours.
In the mid nineties our intensive pig unit gave way to more scenic – palatable – live stock activities, chiefly an organic beef suckler herd. Our freisian-hereford cross cows have been bed with a range of bulls over the years, including Blonde d’Aquitaine, Aberdeen Angus, Limousin and Charolais, to produce rainbow progeny gambolling in the water meadows. Cute little calves. They’re looking at 18 – 22 months.
At a recent Birthday gathering in a Clapham restaurant, well-earning metropolitan friends quizzed me on the possibility of buying ‘a cow,’ with the intention of forming a nose-to-tail gourmet consortium. Perfectly possible, provided they were prepared to part with a grand and eat an awful lot of mince, oh and best they check their terminology and ask for a steer, so as to avoid chomping their way through an aged calf-bearer. The drunken discussion rambled on, but seemed to coalesce around a prevailing concern, to define the ‘life cycle’ of a typical beast. I arranged to call my Dad one evening: I needed to check my facts. And anyway, Rob had asked me to produce a livestock-related ‘rites of passage‘ piece for his blog…
Phone barely rings before being answered: Dad is at his office desk.
“Hello”
“Hi Dad, it’s Al”
“Al! Hi!”
“Is this an ok moment?”
“Yup! It’s ok, sure.” (He sounds a bit preoccupied)
“Well umm I’ll try to be, quick, I just wanted to ask you those cow life cycle questions I mentioned”
“Life cycle. Right”
“You know, about the stages of a calf’s life, from birth to slaughter?”
“Oh yes. Right. Ok. Yup. Fire away”
“Are you sure it’s an ok time?”
“Yup, well, I’m just trying to sort out this situation that’s come up with Daniel. Rather er, rather bad news actually, he’s given his notice. Well, if that.”
(Daniel is a highly valued young farm worker, one of only two permanent employees on the 1000 acre family farm.)
“Oh no! Really?”
“Mmm, he’s got some other job lined up in Devon. He’s had a bust up with his girlfriend or something, I think he wants to get away. So anyway we’re, err, trying to get him to stay for harvest at least or we’re really in trouble.”
“Oh no. What timing… Oh dear, well, um, I’m sorry to bug you- I’ll um, I’ll keep it brief. So I’ve got an idea of the life cycle, but I’ve got some questions too.”
“Righto. Fire away”
“Ok. So heifers can be impregnated from 14 months?”
“Yes, well it depends on their size above all. Cows are put out with the bull from the 1st of May, ideally for 3 months for a tight calving pattern, but actually it’s more like 4 months to get the maximum number of cows in calf.”
“And you pregnancy test after that?”
“Yes from six weeks after the bull is taken out.”
“How?”
“By the vet, either by manual examination, through the rectum wall, or by ultra sound.”
“And the gestation period is nine months”
“Yes. The cows are brought in from the fields around the end of December, depending on ground conditions. Calving happens in the barns, beginning around the end of February.”
“Ok, and what about the calving process? I know you avoid affording the vet if you can help it – you and Leigh can cover most situations between you, right?”
“Well yes. A vet call out is £50, plus his £150 hourly rate, plus the cost of any drugs… luckily our herdsman is very expert. Incorrect presentation or too large a calf are the common problems, but most animals deliver unaided, especially if they are in correct body condition, as determined by what is called ‘condition scoring’ on a scale of 1-5. Basically you don’t want the cow too fat.”
“Fat cows equals caesareans, right?”
“Yes, well, basically, or if the heifer is too young or small when served. Bulls can now be assessed for the trait of easy calving. It’s what’s called an E.B.V.: estimated breeding value.”
“Ok, and the other important thing is that the new-born calf gets its mother’s milk in the first hours of life – so it gets the colostrum in needs to develop its immune system?”
“Yes that’s vital. We check to see it’s suckling”
“Oh and castration for the boy calves, right? That’s got to be a key rite of passage!”
“Oh yes. We use elastic band castration. The calf doesn’t feel anything. We also de-horn all calves while they’re still in the barn, by cauterising the horn buds with a hot iron.”
“And then the cows and their calves are turned out into the fields, with all calving completed?”
“Well they get turned out around mid to late April, but generally they won’t have all delivered till mid June.”
“The bull goes out with them from May, and the cycle begins again, right”
“Yup.”
“And weaning is the next big mile-stone. I remember the animals all make such a mournful racket- November, right?”
“Well yes weaning happens around the 1st November, according to grass availability, because it is expensive to feed the cows winter fodder to produce milk. The cows can then go on to a straw based cheap ration, and the calves on to quality sileage.”
“And the cows should all be going into their third trimester at this point – the next pregnancy well underway. How many calves will a typical cow bear over her lifetime? 7? 12?”
“No, up to 20. Any barreners or old cows are fattened for slaughter. Their carcasses will go for processing meat, you know like pies and processed meat products. They can fetch up to £1000 if ‘fat.’”
“Ok ….erm, thanks, so that’s the cows dealt with, so to speak!”
“Ok”
“Erm, well, so I’d just like to ask quickly about the offspring. The young heifers are kept to become mothers themselves, right?”
“Well we take that decision based on the herd replacement requirements or sale of breeding stock opportunities.”
“Ok, but with the ones that stay, how do you stop them being impregnated by their biological ‘father”?”
“ You ensure the bull in with the cows is NOT their sire!”
“Right! You generally have more than one bull in use? ”
“Yes. Sometimes we hire an extra bull. It depends really. One problem is calves of the cows becoming impregnated due to early maturity – pregnancy testing of the weaned heifer calves is practised to check this.”
‘Right. And the heifers that are not being kept are put on the same fattening regime as the steers?”
“Er, yes. On this farm the process takes about 18 to 22 months, but animals on other farms may be fed intensively and ready for slaughter at 12 months.”
“And what is the typical market price for an average healthy beast?’
“£1,000. They are sold by dead-weight direct to the abattoir, their price determined by reference to the ‘grid’ showing confirmation and level of fatness.”
“Life is short.”
(Snorts) “Well, yes”
“Ok ok, so err, finally, how about the bull- surely the luckiest member of the herd?”
“Well the average life span is probably 7 years, although good, docile, sound ones last much longer.”
“And what happens to the bull after that?”
“Same as the old cows.”
“And a typical price for the carcass?”
“A typical carcass fetches around £1200.”
“Ok. Well, erm, thanks Dad. That seems to cover the basics for now. I’ll give you a ring if I spot any gaps in the transcription.”
“Right you are. I hope it makes sense to your urban friends.”
(Laughs) “Yeah ok! Thanks again Dad, I hope things get sorted on the personnel front…”
“Well yes, that’s another story. Livestock are certainly easier to manage.”
“I don’t know about that! Ok then, speak soon, bye”
“Bye Al, bye.”
