Eamon Oconnell News Today

“Do whatever you like, just don’t get a kick” growled a farmer at me through gritted teeth. We were “squeezing” some hardy suckler weanlings on a miserable, wet day last week and it was not a simple job. The farmer in question was made of tough stuff, but even so, he was struggling at the task of holding the tail. My end of the bargain would be best described as “high risk, low reward” as I stooped down, trying to grab a testicle in one hand and place the burdizzo in the right posi...

Friday night in our house is often movie night. The kids get to pick the film, and they get hot chocolate and a big bowl of popcorn.

Just when we thought it couldn’t get any worse, Storm Kathleen rolls in. “I’m lucky I have flat land, because if it was on any kind of slope, it would have all flowed away by now,” I heard one farmer say as he sheltered from the rain at the door of our veterinary practice.

The calvings and lambings are still coming thick and fast.

‘What’s this a going to cost me?” is a question I hear more and more often, but it never fails to stop me in my tracks.

We had a big ash tree out the front of the house that was suffering from ash dieback, so I decided to get it cut down before it fell down.

With Valentine’s Day on the horizon last weekend, I stopped to pick up a card and my wife’s favourite chocolates.

A big shiny tractor was blocking my usual way into the calf shed when I arrived on farm.

It was another case of ‘small farming, big problems’ last week in the money pit that is my small pedigree Angus herd. I went out to the shed around 9pm with the intention of forking in some silage and being back inside before the kettle had finished boiling for the tea.

I wasn’t long out of college when my first car gave up the ghost and I decided I wanted to buy a jeep. Not having the money to spring for a new one, I bought a second hand ‘bargain’ on the advice of a fellow vet, and so began eight months of torture.