BBBBRRRRRRRRRRR ! ! !

Well it's the 5th of January , and the Met office are telling us that this is the most prolonged cold spell for over 30 years , and God , is it cold .
Snow has fallen daily since before Christmas and if it wasn't for the fact that i have to work in the stuff, it would be fair to say it was impressive . But now , a joke is a joke , and the novelty is wearing off rapidly.
I had entered the Chloanne embryo's for a sale on Thursday , but that has been postponed until later in the month. The catalogue was online and hopefully this should supply a link

http://www.wrightmanley.co.uk/agricultural-livestock/sale-catalogues/files/January(1)%20Club%202010.pdf

The waiting game has started for Frankham Sept Storm Ethel , as her due date approaches, fingers crossed and all that !
The main herd themselves are doing away reasonably well , could do better i suppose but until the weather improves , there's little more i can ask them to do . They are actually averaging just under 29 ltr/hd/day , so all things considered , not bad .
We have just finished calving our latest batch of young heifers , which were in calf to the Aberdeen Angus bull. Whilst the last 2 batches have calved down fairly easily to this bull , the last batch have involved more assisted calvings than i would have hoped for , and as a result of this we are looking into getting rid of the Angus bull and just continuing to use our black and white young bull , Chloanne Hannover !
The snow is playing havoc with trying to get staff here to work , and it's just anybodies guess as to when this cold snap will ease.I suppose it is healthier for the livestock than the usual wet , damp conditions , and hopefully it will thaw GRADUALLY so as to spare me the job of dealing with burst pipes next week. We have around 300,000 gallons of slurry waiting to be spread on the grass , but as it's not the best practice to spread in the snow , we are waiting for a break in the weather.