Celebrating a clear tb test and a record beef delivery day

Last week was hectic to say the least!

We had our 6 month TB test following on from a cycle of 60 day testing which started last autumn after two cows were deemed to be ‘reactors’. They were then slaughtered under law and found to in fact not have TB. A total waste of life and that of their unborn calves and a huge sadness for us to loose two lovely Treway ladies. But that is the struggle of dealing with the disease. A topic which has been much discussed in the press recently after the latest BBC documentary. Will and I are still to watch it but I have seen and heard much chatter about it.

The great news is that this time around we had a clear test which means that our next test will be in February. It will be a tricky time to be testing as our cows will be heavily in calf but in reality there is simply no good time for a TB test!

The summer is in fact the most tricky time for us as all our cattle are out grazing which means a huge amount of work to get everyone where they need to be. What you might not be aware of is that cattle can actually be quite good jumpers and the odd individual will given half the chance will jump out – if you can’t get that animal back and tested the whole test is voided. Even more of a challenge at the moment seeing as our trusty quad bike is currently in the quad hospital awaiting repair!

Poor Will has had to put his building skills to the test and had to construct a whole new handling pen and our ‘race’ (a tunnel shape that the cattle file through to be tested) finally gave up the ghost and needed some rebuilding before our read day on the Friday after a couple of beefy boys got a little over excited!

Meanwhile last week saw a record number of beef/hogget boxes leave the farm and make their way to every corner of the UK 🇬🇧. We certainly kept our butcher Darren and his team extremely busy cutting through 2 and half bodies of beef and 2 hoggets.

The farm shop on Friday was bonkers busy and it is always so wonderful to see so many lovely local customers popping in and not so local….. we had a couple on holiday from Holland who had found us on Google – Amazing!

Then the beefing week was rounded off by a colourful farmer’s market as we were relocated to make way for the Truro Pride celebrations. There was a sea of colour and music as the parade filed past the market!

The week was finished up with the start of rugby pre season training for Charlie, a quest for school uniform and a delicious Sunday dinner of Picanha steak, roasted courgettes from Will’s parents veg garden and chimichurri sauce.

I can’t believe the mini farmers are back to school on Wednesday, the summer holidays have absolutely flown by. I will certainly miss them at home and I can’t say that I am looking forward to the daily scavenger hunt for Flora’s school shoes!