Irish Farmer

Ireland has multiple other breeds of cattle that have been bred here for at least 1000 years. Most are very rare now.

This is the Maoil or Moiled. It gets that name meaning "Bald" or "Pointless" because it's naturally polled (can't grow horns)

It's a dairy breed that comes from the Northwest and it's thought they were cattle that were brought over by the vikings over 1000 years ago. There's numerous references in ancient Gaelic texts that say pure white cattle with red ears were extremely highly valued cattle for centuries. In the 1970s the breed was basically extinct, down to only 20 breeding cows left. A push by farmers has the numbers back up but they're still one of the rarest cattle breeds in the world.

There's a lot of native Irish breeds that have almost been squeezed out of existence by farmers choosing larger foreign breeds that are often harder to keep and less suited to our island.

I think i mastered the art of turning on the comment section.

Here's a scene i saw on the way home

Ribwort Plantain, in Irish its called "Duilleog Naomh Padraig" - Saint Patricks Leaf.

Used for millenia as a medical herb, it's good for your lungs and your stomach if you have an infection. High in Vitamin C and is an anti inflammatory and anti histamine.

You can eat the leaves for internal problems or chew them up and rub it on your skin if it's inflamed in one place. If you have a runny nose from hay-fever just pull the black head off it and chew it like chewing gum and your nose will fix itself in about 30 seconds.

Got a pair of Dexters to start a herd with.

Dexters are a breed that was started by selectively breeding some Kerry mountain cattle. The Kerry and the Dexter are two separate (but very closely related) breeds.

They're the modern day descendants of the "Celtic Shorthorn" that was brought to Ireland ~1000BC

Perfectly adapted to harsh Irish hillsides, they eat a lot of things that the modern, large continental breeds (Fresians, Limousines and Charolais types), won't eat. This one was chewing on docking leaves in the yard this morning.

They grow to about 1/3rd the size of modern breeds and have large feet comparatively, so they don't plough the ground in wet Donegal fields.

The meat is excellent quality and produce more as a % of body weight than modern breeds.

Friendly animals and were often used a milk cows on small Irish farms up until the last generation. One cow can easily rear 2 calves. Great mothers that hide their calves when newborn for a few days until they're strong enough to avoid danger.

Bought some heifers, this one wasn't in great condition but a tiny bit of care a month out in the good weather has made a nice improvement of it.

Now if the grass would start growing I'd be delighted.