This Year’s Calves -2017
One of the delights of working in the parkland at Croft for me is the presence of the cattle. Much of the parkland is also the grazing pasture for home farm. I sometime feel that the farm just sits amidst the traffic of visitors getting on peacefully with rural life and continues, long after the visitors have melted away. Now, in February, it is calving time once more and just like the snowdrops the calves herald the imminence of spring.
I’m no expert on matters of farming but I have it from the farmer, (Victor) that the heifers are a Hereford/Frisian cross and the sire is a Charolais. He tells me the Frisian gene from the cross make them good mothers whilst the Herford/Charolais genes result in high quality beef calves. You only need a glance to see who the daddy is and with a herd of about 80 he has been pretty busy! The calves in the picture, taken in the New Orchard, were a matter of about a week old. I witnessed one of these calves being helped over to the New Orchard and it was interesting to see that the other cattle in the orchard all came over to see the new born, as it tottered along trying to keep up with it’s mother.
