Devonshire Feb 16

The diary of lady farmer, Janet East
Janet on her trusty Fordson Dexta
No... not the Landrover
Daisy was the best, kindest
cow I ever had the pleasure
of owning. A complete gentle
lady. She was a Friesian cross
Hereford and as is typical of
that cross, black with a wide
white face, 3 white socks and
white on the end of her tail.
Goodness knows why I called
her Daisy but I suppose it sums
up everything she was - pretty,
delicate and always there. She
formed part of my small suckler
herd and has always calved
with relative ease. I love suckler
cows as it is so natural for the
calf to stay with its mum until
its weaned many months later.
I put her back in calf to a
Blonde Aquitaine bull and was
very excited at the prospect
of new life on the farm. A cow
is in calve for about 283 days,
similar to us, in the region
of 9 months, so I was fairly
certain that the day was soon
approaching when another
beautiful calf was to grace our
farm.
I had her in a field near the
house so that I could keep a
close eye on her and it wasn’t
long before the day arrived
and she was showing sure
signs of starting to calve. It
is so important that the cow
remains as quiet as possible but
after a while, I started to feel
Mum Daisy and calf Henry
uncomfortable and wasn’t sure
that things were progressing
as they should. She was getting
very agitated and clearly not
getting on with the job as in
previous calvings. A very good
friend of ours was an excellent
cowman and I was soon on my
mobile calling him from the
field and describing what was
going on.
I explained that Daisy has
started calving and I felt
slightly worried, she’s up and
down like a yo-yo but isn’t
making much progress. He
was soon in his Landrover and
appeared at the gate, smiling
as always. By this time there
was one front foot in evidence,
but not the two that we wanted.
Given that she had been trying
for some time, Jo shared my
concern that she was getting
tired and our help was needed.
We decided that we would try
and catch her up in the pen I
had erected in the corner, but
she was having none of it. She
was getting wound up which
was completely the opposite to
what we wanted. Jo suddenly
ran to the car and produced a
very long wound up rope.
“What on earth are you doing?”
“We need to catch her quickly
and there is only one thing for
it - I’m going to lasso her”. He
was deadly serious. I couldn’t
believe it. I just laughed. But I
soon stopped laughing. What
happened next was a sight I
shall never forget. He wound
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