As you can imagine its been very busy the last few weeks in the run up to Christmas. When the snow and ice came last week it got us thinking about Christmas week. Our farm shop is down a side road in a valley. There are two roads in but both have a steep hill [...]

As you can imagine its been very busy the last few weeks in the run up to Christmas.
When the snow and ice came last week it got us thinking about Christmas week. Our farm shop is down a side road in a valley. There are two roads in but both have a steep hill so when its icy or there’s snow about we have to close the shop and if that happened for Christmas we would be in big trouble as we have 350 turkeys for collection.
So last Wednesday we went to town (Roscommon) and had a look at a few shops and found one that suited us so in true Castlemine Farm style we took it the next day and are opening there next Friday 10th!!
We spent the last few days moving equipment from the farm shop to town and it looks great, we are very happy with it so hopefully it will work out for us, at least we wont have to worry about the weather!
On the farm things are going well, its a joy being out on these sunny days. Its a bit cold, I suppose, but its transforms the countryside. It looks like a postcard.
We got very little snow around here but plenty of hard frost.
The only problem I have with it at the moment is water freezing in the troughs for the animals.

On the sheep front, I separated the ewes into four groups. The first group will be lambing after Christmas so I will put them in next week so they can get used to their surroundings and diet before they lamb.
They will be on a diet of silage, oats and minerals to keep them fit and healthy.
I will add in some soya a week before they are due as the extra protein in soya is very good for milk and lambs need as much colostrum as possible in the first 24 hours of their life as that’s what gives them immunity against diseases.

The pigs outside are doing well despite the cold weather. They have lots of food and a big shed full of straw to lay out in so they are happy.
We killed 10 pigs last monday week for the christmas hams.
We cure our hams in a brine which is made up of salt, sugar,cider,cloves and lots more spices. When you walk into the cold room where they are curing it smells gorgeous, I can’t wait to try it.
We had a few piglets last week. 3 sows farrowed with mixed success.
The first had 8, 2 were dead at birth so she was down to 6 the next morning. I went into the shed there was 2 missing so only 4 left, a disaster!
A few days later a sow had 7, all well and still going strong.
The the last is one I want to forget for a while.
She is my best sow, always has 11 or 12 and is a great mother,
She didn’t disappoint, at first she had 11 beautiful piggy’s and all well.
No problems in the first 4 days then on the fifth day I came down and 1 was missing,here we go again!
I thought something had taken them so I covered every way into the shed high and low but for the next 3 days one went missing without a trace. So I emailed Derek Mooney’s wildlife show to see could he shed some light on it.
I went on the radio last friday but they had no suggestions.
However, I did get a call from a man in Mayo who said he kept pigs years ago and came across the same problem.
To some of you this will be a shock but he says she is eating them herself.
Now this has always been in the back of my mind but any information I found was that if they do this its usually while farrowing.
I explained to the man that this would have been the sixth sow who had pigs disappear like this but he claims its like a chain reaction with them, when one does it they all do.
So is the mystery solved???
I’m sure the last sow ate hers even though I didn’t witness it but six sows is hard to believe or maybe I don’t want to believe it!!

Anyway, this might be my last entry before Christmas as we have a hectic couple of weeks coming up so a very happy, healthy and safe Christmas to you all.

- Derek

As I write this the rain is belting off the window. The winter has truly landed, I’ve gotten a few wettings over the last few weeks so I think I’d better invest in new wet gear. It’s been busy around the farm getting set up for winter and bringing the pigs, beef and lamb to [...]

As I write this the rain is belting off the window. The winter has truly landed, I’ve gotten a few wettings over the last few weeks so I think I’d better invest in new wet gear.
It’s been busy around the farm getting set up for winter and bringing the pigs, beef and lamb to the abattoir every week.
I don’t think I’ve told you much about this part of my week.
On Monday, each week, we kill pigs. We are very lucky that the abattoir is only 15 mins away.
He does pigs on Monday and beef and lamb on Tuesday.
Keeping the animals from getting stressed before killing is one of the most important things in determining the quality of the meat as stress releases hormones that can make the meat tough.
If I load my pigs on the farm at 11 o clock 15 to 20 mins later I will be unloading them at the abattoir and they will be killed within the hour, plus they don’t get mixed with other pigs they don’t know as they will fight with strange pigs and that’s very stressful for them.
The beef animals are very wary of strangers. The first few times I brought them over the butcher would help me unload them and as soon as they would see him they would get agitated and be hard to handle and that stress is enough to effect the taste of the meat.
I soon found out that because they see me every day and are used to me they are much calmer, so now I won’t let them see anyone but me when I unload them.
Sheep are generally pretty quite and don’t get stressed easily.
We kill the poultry in batches of 200 usually as we have to travel to Tipperary to get them done so we sell what we can fresh and the rest is frozen for sale over the following weeks.
The sheep breeding season is coming to a close.
I picked out 21 ewe lambs that were over 50 kg, for breeding, and the Charolais ram has already served most of them.
I have 15 cows still out. If the rain continues we will put them in soon.
I don’t know if you remember but back a few months ago we made pit silage ourselves for the first time in 20 years and I opened up the pit on Monday. It was perfect, really good quality so I was delighted.
I do tend to worry about myself sometimes, the things I get excited about (a pile of grass!!!).
On the pig front there are 4 sows due in the next few weeks so they are settled in the shed with plenty of space and straw so all we do now is sit back and wait.
I was doing a bit of carpentry this week, nice to pick up the tools again.
We are building a kitchen next to the shop so we can develop some new cooked products and add some value to our meat.
We hope to have it finished in the next week or two.
I think that’s all for now, I’m heading to the Ireland v New Zealand game on Saturday so I am looking forward to that.

Until next time.

- Derek

The last time I was writing the diary a sow was having piglets. She ended up with 8 very healthy little lads. That was on Monday night Unfortunately on Wed night I had a visit from my old buddy the pine martin. He took one of the piglets . I wasn’t a happy man Thursday [...]

The last time I was writing the diary a sow was having piglets. She ended up with 8 very healthy little lads. That was on Monday night
Unfortunately on Wed night I had a visit from my old buddy the pine martin. He took one of the piglets . I wasn’t a happy man Thursday morning I can tell you. I had thought of him and there was a hole he could get in which he did.
Thursday night I secured the shed well but the sow got out of her pen and knocked over the timber I had closing the hole and left it open, He came back and took another.
It was time to call in the experts so I called a local man who has years of experience all over the world trapping animals.
He landed and found tracks of pine martins around the sheds.
He told me back in the seventies there was a preservation order brought in to protect them and they have got so plentiful now that they have killed a huge amount of the ground nesting birds and are moving in on farm animals like hens, chickens,small lambs, kid goats and my poor pigs.
Its a huge problem for me and there’s not a lot I can do.
I can catch them in a cage and relocate them somewhere but I don’t know how many there are.
I have a cage set up outside the shed. I haven’t caught any but they haven’t gotten anymore pigs so that’s good.
To date they have taken 25 hens and 11 piglets.

I got my wheat sown (12 acres) in some great weather so I am very happy with that.
I had to house some of the cows this week as its getting pretty wet on the land and as they are the biggest and would do the most damage to the land. We call this poaching and it can do a lot of damage to your grass sward so I try to avoid it if I can.
The weather has turned very wintry and the grass is scarce so they were glad to get in and get some silage.
It depends on weather but all the heavy cattle could be in by the end of the week.
I will start feeding the weanling’s the kale this week they will get silage and barley with it as part of a balanced diet. They won’t be housed but they have a sheltered field to lie out in. Its one of the fields the barley was in so it doesn’t matter if they damage it as it will be ploughed in spring.
That’s it!
Belated Happy Halloween
-Derek

What a lovely week so far and its here for a little while I hope!! I have 12 acres ploughed and intend to sow winter wheat in it this week depending on how I get on with the power  harrow I have to do first  to break up the soil and get it into the right condition for sowing, [...]

What a lovely week so far and its here for a little while I hope!!

I have 12 acres ploughed and intend to sow winter wheat in it this week depending on how I get on with the power  harrow I have to do first  to break up the soil and get it into the right condition for sowing, of course around here there is always stones to be picked.

On the pig side of things I got a few jobs done last week. I moved 25 weaned piglets up to 3 acres of turnips I sowed in the corner of a field of oats. They have the field to roam around in and I will give them a section of the turnips each day so they will be very happy there for the winter.

I also picked out 2 gilts (young female pigs) for the boar to have his way with, and he did so.  If he did his job they will be due in 3 months 3 weeks and 3 days, an easy one to remember.

While I’m writing this a Tamworth sow is having her litter. She had 7 last time I looked at her. This is the first litter out of the new boar. They are much hardier piglets, very strong little lads.

I will have another look at them when I finish this. I find you are far better staying well away and just check on them now and again. The last thing they need is me annoying them.

I think nearly all the ewes are in lamb at this stage I put them in and checked all their feet on Saturday last. There was a few lame ones so I ran them through a foot bath of blue stone (copper sulphate) and a solution I got off the Vet. I find it the best way to keep on top of it. It can be problem if not looked after as its contagious. I will let the rams out to the hoggets (young females) next week.

We had a 35 students from Boyle Community College out with us on Monday which was great. They were a good bunch and I enjoyed bringing them around, it’s a nice change.

We took a lot of photos of the farm on Tuesday morning for the website we’ve wanted to do this for a while so we made a start.

Brendan should have some up on the site in the coming weeks.

That’s it I think.

 -  Derek

I never thought I would be so dependent on a laptop.  It took a tumble 2 weeks ago and had to be sent off to be fixed and I only got it back today. The office pc was down to0 so I didn’t get to check emails too often and I’m getting very used to internet banking! Anyway back to [...]

I never thought I would be so dependent on a laptop.  It took a tumble 2 weeks ago and had to be sent off to be fixed and I only got it back today.
The office pc was down to0 so I didn’t get to check emails too often and I’m getting very used to internet banking! Anyway back to normal again.

On the farm things are moving along. I let out the rams with another group of ewes last week so they will be due in mid feb. I weaned (took away calves from cows) half   the calves last week and the rest this week so the cows can have a break for a few months.  I scanned them 2 weeks ago and there is a few with no calves so they have to go. I’ll buy a few replacements in the coming months.

There is a scramble across the country to get the last of the slurry out before the oct 16th deadline.
For those of you who only see slurry as the smelly stuff that stinks up the countryside I’ll give you a little insight of its value and how its all part of a very natural and environmentally friendly way of farming.

N(nitrogen) P(phosporus) K(potash)  are the main nutrients needed for plant growth. When livestock eat our most natural resourse, grass, the waste they produce happens to be full of N, P and K.

When you take a crop off the land, be it barley or silage you have to keep the stock off it. So when you cut it and bring it out of the field what you are left with is a bare field and because there was no stock on it all the nutrients are taken away with the crop.

So to complete the cycle we put the animal waste straight back on the land to replenish the nutrients. The more use we make of this slurry, believe it or not, the better it is for the enviornment as we dont have to use chemical fertiliser.So it has a very important role to play in farming.
I hope to sow some winter wheat next week weather permitting.It hasn’t been sown on the farm for years so it will be a learning curve.

I think thats it for this week.

Busy busy busy!! The last 2 weeks were crazy. As you know the weather was brilliant. We couldn’t have asked for better. We went at the silage last Friday 2 weeks we spent all of Saturday and Sunday at it. We had to take a break on Monday as it rained but it gave me a chance to get [...]

Busy busy busy!!

The last 2 weeks were crazy.
As you know the weather was brilliant. We couldn’t have asked for better.
We went at the silage last Friday 2 weeks we spent all of Saturday and Sunday at it.

We had to take a break on Monday as it rained but it gave me a chance to get ready for the barley.

Tuesday was fine and we finished the silage pit that night and got it covered it early Wednesday,just in time for the combine harvester which arrived at 12pm so it was straight
into the corn harvest.

We had Wednesday, Thursday,Friday,Saturday at the barley. We got done late Saturday night which was great.

The combine had to go to someone else before he started my oats. I didn’t mind as I was at a wedding Friday night and was a bit worse for ware and didn’t mind the rest.
We were back at it Monday and Tueday and finished the oats Tues night.

Delighted!!

The best feeling to get it done and the best yield and quailty I’ve had in my farming career.
All thanks to the weather.

Its nice to praising it rather than giving out about it.There was still no sign of the weather to break so we started to bale the straw and got it all done Thursday without a drop of rain so the quality was great.

I still had 20 acres of silage (round bales) to do and the rain was comming Saturday
so we mowed it Thursday night and baled it Friday night and we just had it done when the heavens opened. So we are all set up for the winter (I hope).

So it was a busy 2 weeks on the farm as well a wedding, a little man starting school
and a little lady starting playschool.

A great 2 weeks!!!

Derek

Patience, Patience, Patience, With 50 acres of silage to cut and 40 acres of barley and oats the rain is still holding things up. Hopefully it will clear soon and we can get on with it. I always get a bit edgy this time of year. I should get around 100 ton of grain and at this years prices of [...]

Patience, Patience, Patience,

With 50 acres of silage to cut and 40 acres of barley and oats the rain is still holding things up. Hopefully it will clear soon and we can get on with it.

I always get a bit edgy this time of year. I should get around 100 ton of grain and at this years prices of 150 euro a ton its a lot of money in the ground and a day or two of wind and rain can
do a lot of damage.

I weaned all the piglets this week so the sows should be back in pig in a week or three.
The new boar will be busy!

The rams are in full swing this week so the first lambs will arrive in the middle of Jan.

I bought 2 new Charolais rams yesterday. I won’t put them to work for a month or so.

Once we get going there is a lot of work to get through in the next month so I’ll keep you posted.

Derek

Just heard on the news it’s been the wettest July for a while. I forget how many years, 30 or so I think.  I thought it was worse last year, ground conditions are still very good around here but we are on very dry land. Things have been moving at a nice pace not mad [...]

Just heard on the news it’s been the wettest July for a while.
I forget how many years, 30 or so I think.  I thought it was worse last year,
ground conditions are still very good around here but we are on very dry land.

Things have been moving at a nice pace not mad busy for a change.
I let out the rams with the first batch of ewes (40 of them), no action yet!
The rams are still hanging out in the corner of the field eyeing up the talent.
They should get around to it any day,147 days is the gestation period for sheep
so early Jan we should have lambs.

I know it sounds early but we got our day old turkey chicks on Thursday last, 420 of them.
They have to be put under heat for 3 to 4 weeks so they take a bit of minding.
We won’t find it until they are out at grass. We got bronze and white turkeys.
The bronze tend to graze more but don’t grow as big.
You’d be suprised how much grass turkeys will eat.It makes for a very natural turkey.
One guy said to me last year that he didn’t realize that turkey tasted like it had a flavour.
He hadn’t tasted real flavour in turkey before.

On the crops side of things the crows are starting to do a lot of damage.
They land on it, knock it over and eat the grain.
They can destroy all before them if not kept at bay.
Scarecrows , bangers and firing the odd shot at them usually does the trick.
Hopefully the weather will improve and we can cut it in the next few weeks.
That’s it for now

Derek

A quite enough week this week, The weather has been wet so it’s hard to get a full days work in outside. I don’t mind the odd shower when I’m working but there was some very very heavy showers and no matter how good the rain gear is it will get in somewhere. The fact [...]

A quite enough week this week,
The weather has been wet so it’s hard to get a full days work in outside.
I don’t mind the odd shower when I’m working but there was some very very heavy showers and no matter how good the rain gear is it will get in somewhere.
The fact that the gear is a few years old might be a issue too!

I bought my breeding sheep this week.
I get them off a guy who puts in a lot of work with breeds, picking out the best sheep over a long number of years so he has high quaility ewes.
I buy them as lambs so it’s a bit cheaper than getting ewes ready for breeding.

Other than that it was a mixed week of a bit of fencing, moved some cattle and picking 40 ewes for breeding next week.

Derek

The rain has arrived and at a nice pace, not too much. The land has turned back to its 40 shades of green again and the grass is becoming plentiful once more. Since I last wrote in the diary I was in the South of England visiting a few farms. I was at a tillage [...]

The rain has arrived and at a nice pace, not too much.
The land has turned back to its 40 shades of green again and the grass is becoming plentiful once more.

Since I last wrote in the diary I was in the South of England visiting a few
farms.
I was at a tillage farm,beef and sheep farm and a outdoor reared pig and poultry farm.
I love visiting other farms. You will always find a new and better ways to do things.
There was a group of us traveling together and it always makes for interesting conversations.

As usual the farm is busy.
I weaned the lambs (taken away from there mothers}the other day.
We do this to give the ewes a chance to get ready for the breeding season and its no benefit to the lambs to be on the ewes this time of year anyway.
I dont know if I mentioned this last time but I had a vist from a pine martin or mink recently.
They killed 8 newly born piglets in the shed, one or two a night for a few nights.
Very annoying as I was not able to stop it until I put a radio in the shed and left it on all night.
It seems to have worked but it was a big loss to take, I suppose these are the joys of farming!

The crops are starting to ripen nicely.
It will probably be the end of August before its ready, weather
permitting.

Up the Rossies!!

Derek