It looked simple enough. A bullock stuck his head through old ESB poles that were acting as the back to one of the slatted sheds. He was seemingly aiming at some tasty ivy growing up the supporting wall of our emergency water storage tank.

In his apparent greed, he got his neck caught in an old gate and became wedged in between the heavy poles placed across the width of the shed and the steel gate.

I am not sure how long he was there before he was noticed – he was still standing, but clearly very stressed, and was in no mood to co-operate with the rescue efforts.

We disentangled the gate and after a lot of effort, got him to straighten his neck and eased him out and back into the shed. I thought he might collapse at that stage, but he shook himself off and began eating.

We heaved a sigh of relief. He was a good forward store, about six weeks from being finished. The main lesson learned was the need for regular inspection of stock during daylight hours. There is nothing as demoralising in farming as unnecessary deaths of stock.

First sale

Last week, we sold our first cattle of the season. Last year, we started selling coming up to Christmas – an indication of reduced performance over the summer grazing period – but we have ended up with mixed messages, as this year’s first load of cattle were predominately 22 and 23 months of age and graded out at an average fat score of 3= to 3+.

We won’t really know how margins and profitability compare until we have the replacements bought.

We are still using our own barley from the 2023 harvest, but not for much longer.

The earlier housing of cattle in the wet autumn has meant that we have got through our saved barley earlier than we had budgeted for, so we will have to buy from here on in the open market.

After a dry 10 days, we will try some ploughing to see if land has firmed up. I am prepared to sow the remaining winter wheat into February, assuming it goes as feed grain. If it goes in later, we will sow it with the aim of taking a crop of arable silage and keep our rotation intact.

The gluten-free oats is not under the same time pressure, and while I would much rather have sown it in the autumn, it is a spring variety, so I presume we will get a chance in March or April.

I see Teagasc is carrying out an online survey of how many autumn crops have actually been sown and how much are pushed out to the spring. The results should be interesting.