THE week began with a miserable wet day. The stormy conditions deposited about half an inch of rain, with clear night skies giving us lower morning temperatures.

There has been a good deal of sunshine but chilly breezes have not enabled the sinking sun to give much warmth,with a rather dull, damp, cool day at the end of the week.

On Manor Farm our small tractor, used to scrape muck away from passages where the cows walk, was very poorly at the beginning of the week. The seals on the fuel pump had perished allowing diesel to mix with the engine oil, so the pump is in for repair.

Our other tractors have once again been working very hard ploughing, cultivating and rolling the ground from which our maize crop was recently harvested. By the end of the week all the seed had been planted and the earlier sown crops have germinated, so many of the fields look green once again. From now on these crops will have to be checked regularly for weeds, and any signs of disease, very much influenced by weather patterns from now until next harvest.

On Stowell Farm, Kevin has been planting two varieties of winter wheat Skyfall and Santiago. Skyfall is a new milling wheat with its first commercial harvest this year. It is a higher yielding milling wheat and so far the protein content has been good.

However we will have to see the crop through a few more growing seasons before a more accurate assessment can be made. Of all the wheat grown in the UK only 20 per cent is grown for milling, but much of this will not make the grade, so many farmers have decided to go back growing higher yielding, easier to manage varieties. Santiago is a consistent, vigorous, high yielding feed wheat.

The cows on Manor Farm continue to give birth, with only one or two expecting Friesian / Holstein dairy calves. Our first Aberdeen Angus x calf was born during the week. All our Angus calves will be sold to a local farmer to be reared on for beef. We have had the result of a preliminary analysis of our recently ensiled forage maize crop.

At this stage the results are good with dry matter and starch content just above 30 per cent.

On Chuggaton Farm, North Devon, our daughter Adele and son-in-law Steve have recently had their annual TB test on the herd. Every bovine on the farm was given a skin test and the results read three days later. When tested the animals have to be restrained in a cattle crush, with readings recorded for skin thickness on two sites on their necks before the skin test injections are administered.

After a few animals have been tested the rest soon realise something out of routine is going on, so become increasingly agitated. We always worry that somebody may be injured and on this occasion Steve was badly kicked by a heifer that lashed out while in the crush. Fortunately the injury was not too serious.

Three days later the results confirmed their worst nightmare. One heifer close to calving was confirmed as a reactor and two others, one calved and the other not due for a few weeks, were given inconclusive results.

The reactor was slaughtered during the week and it was decided the inconclusive reactors would not be retested, but sent to an abattoir to be slaughtered as well.

The animals will then be checked for internal lesions and tissue cultures done, to check the accuracy of the test results.

The problem for Adele and Steve is that at the moment they have no market for the Aberdeen Angus x calves due to be born, so they have to decide whether to keep them with limited barn space and the problems that may cause, or have them slaughtered.

However whatever the tissue cultures show all the cattle will have to be retested every 60 days, until they have two clear tests. This is the first TB breakdown they have had since they set up a new herd following the loss of their herd in the 2001 foot and mouth epidemic.