"Humour her, dear, she's a blipper!"

These cows and calves are so lovely. They are totally relaxed with Ollie and me as we wander past them a couple of times a day. They are Limousins, good beef cattle, and good mothers too. The bulls can be quite highly strung and temperamental but these girls are quite laid back. They belong to a small family farm where they are handled gently and calmly.

To make record keeping easier, each year the farm names their calves with the next letter of the alphabet, and as you see this year it is "I". The farmers were telling me that when they only had twenty cows calving it was easy, but now they have 45 names to find every year! This field has four cows and calves in it and the calves are Iris, Indigo, Iggy and Iursa. The ear tag also records the farm name, Hools, and the calf's mother's name, Birr, therefore born in 2006. The other ear has the official tag in it, with among other numbers, the herd number and the calf's passport number. Farm record keeping is incredibly detailed because traceability of meat is now so important.

So now you know!