Across some of the most beautiful and remote landscapes of
the British Isles... There's not many views like that -
it's absolutely stunning.
..Scotland's farmers work day and night...
..producing our milk...
Come on.
..and our meat.
Trying out new ideas...
Buffalo doesn't want to do something,
you're going to find it very difficult.
Hey!
..and striving to turn a profit in tough economic times.
We're struggling, we're definitely struggling.
Blue rosette.
Over the course of a year, six very different families...
..let cameras onto their farms...
SHE LAUGHS
Everything that could have gone wrong there went wrong.
Hey.
The idea of lying on a beach - bliss.
..to share their struggles...
We have to get her out, or she's going to die.
..and their triumphs.
Thank you.
It's not about the pay cheque, it's about the lifestyle.
It's a new year in Scotland.
A blanket of frost has enveloped the fields and hills.
Nutritious grasses and vegetation
lie dormant at a time when
many of the farmer's sheep and cattle are pregnant.
Not a bad morning to feed the girls.
But with the shortest day now behind them,
each minute of extra sunlight gives farmers cause for joy.
I'm just having a wee check of the crosses here.
It's a beautiful day, and that makes all the difference.
In the cycle of the farming calendar,
it's the quiet time of year between breeding and birthing.
Farming's all about the seasons,
and different times of year mean different things.
Generally, winter is all about keeping the animals warm,
well-fed and out of the worst of the weather.
And, then, we can look forward to the spring,
when the animals can go out.
But this winter's been a little bit different.
On the east coast, in the rolling grasslands of Fife...
Boys.
..pioneering farmer Stevie Mitchell rears a herd
of 400 water buffalo for prime meat.
They're getting ahead of me, so I better crack on.
Stevie usually times his breeding cycle
so that his calves are born out in the fields in the summer...
Come on, boy. Come on.
HE WHISTLES
..but this year, his breeding bull, 007, was firing blanks,
which has thrown everything out of kilter.
That old power cow's not in calf.
So these guys ran with a different bull,
so they're calving out of sequence with what we would have preferred.
Stevie had to use another of his bulls to do the job instead.
And now, for the first time,
30 of his cows are calving in a crowded shed in winter.
It'll be a little bit more challenging with them inside -
we normally like to calve with them outside with lots of space.
But that's just what we have to deal with today.
You're OK.
Good girl.
They're being looked after by Polish-born stockman Eddie.
I come over to Scotland 2006.
A friend say Stevie's looking for a worker, working with buffalo.
You OK?
Now, coming up to nine year...
HE LAUGHS
..in September. So...
time go really fast.
Good girl.
Always different jobs, every day. I like it, you know.
Buffalo normally calve very secretly, to protect themselves.
Eddie has never seen one give birth before.
This year, he's in luck.
HE PANTS
Now, I check if any are going to be calving,
and I see one right now going to be calving.
I have to maybe...give a pull, help.
HE GRUNTS
I clean the...nose
right now.
And leave the rest
to cow can do.
Good cow. Good girl.
You OK?
You done well.
It's a healthy bull calf, which is great news for Stevie.
STEVIE: Very happy. Just come up to see Eddie's
filmed one of the calves being born, so...
it's quite exciting. It's very rare that we manage to actually catch one
on camera.
This is the wee fella, over here.
A perfect little calf, and it's great the sun's out today as well.
That's what you want for your first morning.
Mum seems quite content,
so I'm going to go in and have a wee look.
New buffalo mothers can be particularly dangerous
when they're protecting young calves.
Eh. Back off.
Stevie got between a buffalo and her calf before
and was brutally attacked...
She's not quite sure.
..so he's learned to be cautious.
Maybe not a great idea.
I'll come back. HE LAUGHS
It's OK, pal.
She's come across there quite...
meaningfully, sort of suggesting that I'm not welcome in the pen,
so I think we'll just leave them to it.
One down, and plenty more to come.
120 miles west, on the Isle of Mull in the Inner Hebrides...
You two are just a pain in the neck.
..new entrant farmers Janet and Alastair Taylor
also have pregnant livestock to look after.
Getting there.
On their 700-acre farm,
their free-range sheep will eventually lamb out on the hill.
Right, then. See if this works.
THEY LAUGH
But today, the plan is to bring the whole flock in
to separate the ewes from the tups.
What we're going to do is, we're going to shake the bag at them,
they'll come running to us,
and we'll just use that to bring them into the shed...
hopefully.
Everything with sheep's hopefully.
Come on.
Come on, now.
The ewes have been out with the tups - or rams - for seven weeks,
and the hope is that they're all in lamb.
Steady, girl, steady.
Janet and Alastair don't want to spend money on pregnancy scanning...
..but they have invested half of their total profits
from last year's lambs on a new gadget.
Our new electronic reader.
This is our first time out using it.
This is going to make life easier.
The record-keeping is going to be easier.
It's a big part of farming, is the record-keeping.
All we'll have to do is run the reader down
and read each sheep's number.
We can say what medicines they've been given,
and then we'll plug it into the computer
and it does all our medicine records for us.
And it represents quite a significant investment for us,
cos it was over £1,000 for the whole thing together.
We've got a computer software programme,
we've got the stick reader,
we've got the tablet.
But hi-tech and farming don't always make good bedfellows.
Well, there's software on this,
and that scans it.
Yes... Scans the tags... So when I press the button,
this reads the electronic tags that are in the sheep's ears,
and it sends it to the tablet -
if we can get it to work.
HE LAUGHS
Where's the instructions?
Who needs instructions?!
Come on, live dangerously. OK.
Add animals - let's see how that goes.
SHE LAUGHS
READER BEEPS
And then what do I do to get her number, though?
You need to link these two things, don't we?
Oh, is that what's happened? Oh!
Farming and technology!
SHE LAUGHS
"Unable to connect to the reader."
That says "connected". Yeah, it just said, "Unable to connect to reader."
Do I need to go and get the instructions? Go and get the... I don't know where they are.
Right, I'll see if I can't work it out
while you're finding the instructions.
With the help of the manual...
Purple. READER BEEPS
..the system is now up and running.
What have you got? White. READER BEEPS
The electronic reader will also help Janet and Alastair track how
all their ewes are performing from one year to the next.
Purple. Check.
We'll be able to see who's having good lambs
and who's having slightly poorer lambs.
And that way, if there's a ewe that's constantly producing
quite scrawny, wee lambs, we can know her and get rid of her
and promote the ones that are producing big, fat lambs.
Sounds a bit ruthless, saying,
"Just get rid of that sheep because it's not performing,"
but she'll get a good couple of years,
cos sometimes they have a bad year.
It'll be a performance record
throughout the year, so we'll be able...
Years. You'll see a pattern. So we'll see a pattern.
So if there's someone who's not doing it,
then we'll be thinking of getting rid of them.
SHE LAUGHS
That's it. As long as numbers allow. Yes.
As for the tups, their job is now over until next year.
They look like they've been working hard, which is what we want,
but the fact they look like they've lost some weight's a good sign.
The exertions of tupping
mean these boys can lose up to 15% of their body weight.
Owen was an eight-month-old virgin
when he was first introduced to the ladies...
JANET: Yeah, he's trying.
He's certainly very interested.
SHE LAUGHS
..and there are signs he's embraced his new role.
Ewes like this one here that's got green on her bum will be Owen's.
So she'll be having an Owen lamb, hopefully.
Harold's just going round now,
asserting his dominance over everyone again,
making sure they all know that he's in charge,
even though he's the smallest of them.
The tups won't have to work again until November.
Come on, then.
Everything is now down to the pregnant girls.
Come on.
These ewes are the fifth generation Janet and Alastair have raised...
..and they see these hills as their home.
It's a traditional method of farming, called hefting.
ALASTAIR: So through the years, as they've been born on the place,
they've become what we call hefted to the place.
So the ones that were born on a specific hill,
they then know that as their home
and will want to live there and stay there, and not go wandering off.
JANET: Nice to see them out on the hill.
It is. They look happy, don't they?
They do. They look happy.
Glad not to be contained any more.
Much rests on a content flock.
Janet and Alastair's farm only brings in money
when they sell their calves and lambs.
So, hopefully, all the ewes are pregnant.
It'd be nice to have a lamb for every sheep,
but that'll never happen.
Well, it might happen. We just have to see,
cos we've got different tups... Yeah. ..and things -
you just don't know what's going to happen.
They'll just have to wait until the spring.
A cold front has descended on Scotland.
Freezing temperatures sweep the country, bringing snow to Fife.
On Stevie's farm, more buffalo have given birth
and the maternity shed is filling up fast.
Go on. EDDIE WHISTLES
Eddie's keeping an eye on them.
I take any calf, new calf born.
If they need some bedding, you know,
give fresh straw.
BUFFALO MOANS
And a new calf has just been born.
That new calf is just born right now.
See?
Maybe...five minutes ago.
And that's his mum.
It's another bull calf,
but something is wrong.
Baby buffalo should be up and drinking milk
within the first two hours of birth.
It's been longer than two hours,
and this little fellow is showing no signs of getting up.
And with the snowy conditions, Stevie is worried.
He looks incredibly... delicate at the moment.
Poor wee thing.
I would definitely have expected it to have been...
up on its feet. It's looking a little bit fragile, lying there.
I'm a little bit concerned about it.
The way the snow is coming in, it's not ideal.
Yeah, we definitely need to get it away from this corner.
The calf's coat is still wet from his birth.
And as he hasn't taken on any milk,
his life is in danger.
He needs to be moved to shelter further back in the shed.
We're going to make this into two pens.
Right. We'll get three gates.
One... Two going that way, one going that way,
and it'll just strengthen it up a bit.
Right, OK. And lots of...rope. STEVIE LAUGHS
Thanks, Eddie.
Once we get it into a wee pen on its own,
and it's dry and had a bellyful of milk,
and then we can relax.
OK...
It's down to mum and calf now.
Obviously, it's important it does get up and have a drink.
But, generally, buffalo calves and mums are...
brilliant at that.
They're... It's never usually an issue.
The calf must stand in order to feed.
Come on, little one. You can do it.
Oh, well done.
Well done.
Oh!
You want to kind of just go in and help it
but, the truth is, it needs to do it itself.
It's a pretty good job done. Pretty good.
It looks perfect, Eddie. Well done.
The calf is now four hours old and still hasn't fed.
It's heavy.
The first milk - or colostrum - is packed full of antibodies
that he desperately needs to build his immune system.
Let's get mum. Is she coming?
You're all right, lass.
Now, just need to let them be.
And, hopefully, the calf will rest up
and then get the energy to get up on its feet on its own
and have a drink.
I think the best thing, actually,
at this stage, is for us just to leave them to it.
CALF MOANS
So much about successful farming is knowing whether to intervene...
..or leave the animals to follow their natural instincts.
It's a complex relationship between farmer and animal,
using knowledge and experience built up over many years.
On the west coast, in Appin...
Here, Chance. Here you go, boy. Good lad.
..hill farmers David and Sandra Colthart
keep a large flock of hefted Blackface sheep.
Ju-Ju.
She's probably looking for cats. She's scared of cats.
The ewes have been separated from the tups.
And today, it's time to return them to the hills.
The sheep are looking well.
We dosed them yesterday after we took the tups off,
and they're just going home now. They'll be looking forward
to getting back onto their own bit of ground.
It should be quite a simple job.
The dogs are happy to get a bit of work as well, so...
David's not too hungover today, either, so...
THEY LAUGH
I've got Chance, and Sandra has got June.
Two dogs that do what they're told,
so there's not going to be a lot of yelling or anything like that.
Well, they usually do what they're told, so...
SHE LAUGHS
Keep things nice and civil.
June! Stop eating that.
What you doing? Civil, did you say, Sandra?
Ci-vil.
June. Juney! Don't eat that.
Chance! That'll do.
The hill park is a large fenced area
between the farm and the hilltops.
Trekking through it involves a steep climb of 300 metres.
Starting to feel the pace now.
HE LAUGHS
With their animals spread over 3,200 acres of rough, high terrain,
David and Sandra are no strangers to long hikes.
Break time, Sandra. Break time?
Are you serious?
Stand.
The plan is to drive the ewes up to a gate
which leads to the open hills.
The sheep are just nicely moseying up...
..to the top there.
Oh.
I think I'm hearing David somewhere down there.
You're awfully slow, David.
What's keeping you?
You are.
Just taking in the view,
absorbing the beautiful scenery we live in. Uh-huh.
And after an hour of climbing...
You needing a hand, pet? No.
..the ewes reach the gate.
DAVID: They want to go back to their own bit of hill
and they're there for the whole lifetime on the farm.
So they raise their lambs there and the female lambs,
the ewe lambs, will go back to that part of the hill.
Sheep are gregarious.
They have a strong instinct to stay together for protection.
That's why they always follow a leader,
even if that leader makes the wrong decision.
When I open the gate, the sheep know where they go -
they just run out the gate themselves.
They're just waiting to be let out. Yep.
They want to go home. Let's get back to the hill, ladies.
Chance, come here. Come by. Come by.
With the gate now open, all the sheep have to do is step through.
Come by.
Get June over this side, Sandra.
But the ewe at the front gets another idea.
Come by. Come by, come by, come by.
Come by! June! Come by.
Things are not going to plan.
Get up, get up, get up.
Come by, Chance. Come by. SANDRA WHISTLES
Come by!
The flock is off back down to the farm.
Here. Here, here, here, here.
Come by, Chance.
By. Come by.
Here, here, here, here.
Get away, get away.
Lie down. Lie down!
Lie down!
SHE WHISTLES
Trusty sheepdogs Chance and June
swing the sheep back to the open gate.
June's away out there. June's around them.
June's behind them.
Good girl.
SHE WHISTLES
Steady, now. Steady. Good dog.
Now, they just need one girl to lead the flock through it.
Oh, come on! They're going to go, Sandra.
They'll go.
There they go.
Lie down! Lie down.
SANDRA EXHALES There they go.
They're all heading up to their own little bits now.
That'll do. Good girl.
They normally go through that gate just automatically, but for whatever
reason they decided today not to do what we thought they'd do.
And there's one brute that decided to lead the rest of them,
and if one sheep goes, the rest will follow.
So...
But, anyway, a wee bit of excitement at the end.
That was great. The sheep are all happy now,
they're heading off to their homes.
That's one of the nicest jobs
is when we do let them out and they actually string away,
they take their own wee tracks up to their own part of the hill,
and they just know their own way back.
It's like migrating salmon
trying to find the burn that they were born in.
Hefted sheep are wedded to the land they are born on.
Even when there are green pastures available below, these ewes will
head back to the far inferior rough terrain of their birth.
This homing instinct is passed on from ewe to lamb across generations.
These sheep, their ancestors would have been on the same hills,
you know, 100 years ago, 150 years ago.
And it's the same throughout the hill farms of Scotland.
So that's it. Right.
Home, a coffee in. Coffee and a biscuit.
Plan for the afternoon.
I think I'll be borrowing the dog's bed today.
THEY LAUGH
It's late afternoon in Fife.
The little buffalo calf is now seven hours old.
Stevie's back at the shed to check on him.
Has it been up on its feet yet, Eddie?
No. I think we maybe try.
The calf won't survive
if he doesn't take milk within the first 12 hours of his life.
Just always, since it's born,
there's been something just not quite typical of a buffalo calf.
No, don't fight it, Eddie.
You know, it's a big, strong, healthy calf,
but it's just a bit slow on the uptake of what it should be doing.
Come on, wee one.
Normally, it's just a very natural instinct, but I had it there,
holding it in the right place, and it was kind of thinking about it,
but it didn't take on any milk.
But...just going to have to persevere a little bit.
There's the milk - look.
Oh, so close.
Come on, wee one.
You have to want it. You do, wee fella.
Eh? That's how we survive - we need to drink.
Come on. Please?
Please?
I'm starting to get a bit...
concerned.
We definitely need to get some milk into it.
I think what we may have to consider doing is stripping some milk
into a bag and then putting a tube down calfie's throat to...
to give it some milk.
I hate doing it, though.
I'd far rather it just had a drink naturally.
It's definitely not looking too good for the wee fella at the moment.
It needs to have milk in its tummy.
The calf urgently needs his mother's colostrum.
Eddie, you try, and I'll start milking. Right.
You OK? Yeah.
Now, watch, Eddie.
Watch, watch, watch! Watch.
Right, just take the calf away, Eddie.
Buffalo milk.
So we need about three of these, I think.
Back in the day, this is how they milked all cows
before they had milking machines.
Oh, aye.
Stevie can feed the calf himself...
If there's any left, you can have it for your coffee, Eddie.
No, thank you.
..but he'll need to put a tube down its throat to its stomach.
They don't like it getting put in their throat, funnily enough.
In my experience of buffalo,
when they let out a kind of cry for help...
..as nice as mum has been, she might attack me,
so I'm just going to put her in another pen.
It seems quite an unnatural thing to do for this wee calf
but if it didn't get this, it would die, simple as that.
It needs milk,
ideally within six hours,
but at least with 12 hours,
otherwise it wouldn't survive.
It's a tricky procedure that can go badly wrong.
I know, it's not nice. That's it.
That's it.
Milk could miss the stomach and pour into the calf's lungs.
Come on, baby.
Come on.
OK.
Right, we're in.
You want it? Yeah, let it pour.
Easy, wee 'un.
Up you go.
MILK GURGLES
Pour it, Eddie - go straight up.
It's OK, little one.
Is it pouring? Yeah.
Oh, calfie. You're OK.
Just give it all. Uh-huh.
OK.
MILK GURGLES
Oh! Last one? OK.
STEVIE PANTS
Oh, I feel a lot happier.
At least he's got a bellyful of milk.
I'm not going to lie, I was absolutely bricking it there.
I have seen that go wrong, too.
At least you've got all the good stuff inside you now.
Eh?
It's nine hours since the calf was born.
You hop over and I'll pass it over to you.
Now he has milk in his stomach,
his survival rests on his natural instincts
to stand and feed on his own.
We just have to give it time now.
Just have to keep our fingers crossed that it recovers.
While calving normally happens in a seasonal pattern
on buffalo, beef and sheep farms,
it's an ongoing event on some dairy farms.
In the low-lying pastures of Dumfries and Galloway
in the south-west of Scotland...
More? No, up a wee touch.
..dairy farmers Tracey and Steven Roan are preparing
the maternity ward for the next batch of pregnant cows.
You just get straw everywhere, like. And I mean everywhere.
You go home at night, and there's straw in your wellies.
You get undressed at night and there's straw in your underwear.
Glamorous.
The family dairy business needs a constant supply of milk,
so their cows calve all year round.
Quite often, the day you pick to do this,
you quite often find that somebody decides to calve that day,
so they're standing out there with their legs crossed,
and then as soon as you open the gate to let them back in,
there's one that pops a calf out right away.
Right, I'm going to go and get the kids.
Right. OK. OK?
Tracey never forgets to go and get the kids.
Occasionally, if it's my job and I'm working away,
you lose track of time and you're like, "Oh, no!"
You're late. But, er...I don't think I've ever completely forgotten.
Right. I think that should do them, so I'll let them back in.
Come on.
They just come in here for the last sort of 2½ weeks before they calve.
It's just a lot easier for the cows,
when they're heavily pregnant, to let them lie in the loose bedding.
It's a familiar routine for Steven and Tracey -
their herd produces around 200 calves a year.
See how she's just got her tail up?
I'd be fairly sure she's about to start the process of calving.
COW MOOS
This is her first calf, so you're not wanting the calf to be too big.
But usually you're as well just to kind of give them a bit of time.
You don't want to rush in too quick.
Seven-year-old Andrew is back from school.
Oof!
He's showing signs of following in his parents' footsteps.
Have you finished? Yeah.
Right, we'll go and check that cow that's calving. Yeah. Yeah?
You're not scared of the cows, are you? No. No.
It's like a dog. It's like a dog? Yeah.
But you don't bring them in the house. Yeah. No.
The cow Steven spotted earlier has begun to calve.
It's coming. Yeah, she's doing really well.
The nose is coming out,
and the front legs and then...
Well, the head's going to come out and then the front legs and then...
and then it'll probably stand up and it'll just all come out.
And then we'll see if it's a boy or a girl.
Because it can just be anything.
It might be a boy and it might be a girl.
A girl, or heifer, will go on to join the milking herd.
If it's a boy, its future is more uncertain.
I'll go in, so when it comes out...
Right, OK. Just be very careful. Nice and quiet.
This is always quite a tense moment, I find.
You will want her to get on with it, and it's coming,
but you're almost like, "Er, is it alive? Yeah?"
But I think it is.
But you've just got to let them get on.
Is it alive, Andrew?
Is its airways clear enough?
Clear away the straw from its nose. Lift its nose up a wee bit.
Do you want me to come and check?
We'll maybe just give a wee pull, will we?
Come on. There we go, girl.
Right. Let's have a quick look.
The calf is out.
Oh. Right.
But something's wrong.
Come on. Andrew, get some straw.
Come on, lass.
Oh, dear.
Come on, calf. Come on!
Come on. Come on.
It's a bull.
No, there's no life about it. No.
No, it's dead.
That's not good.
I don't know what's happened there.
Can't feel any...
No. Oh, dear.
No, there's no life in it, unfortunately.
It can happen.
But...yeah.
It's not nice, is it, Andrew?
You can't really put a big impact on it,
because it's always got to happen.
You have to have some dead calves, some alive calves.
It's just normal because it's got to happen.
For the mother, life carries on.
She should be fine. That'll be her part of the milking herd now.
Yeah, she's probably quite oblivious to it all.
But she should be OK.
Just kind of feel for her a bit.
As for the calf, his future on the farm was already limited
by the fact that he's a boy.
We're hoping for heifer calves, hoping for girl calves,
as much as possible.
Most of the bull calves, we do rear them too and they do end up as beef.
But if you had a very small bull calf,
very occasionally, we would make...
It's a very difficult decision, but occasionally,
we would just cull a few of them at birth
because they're just no value whatsoever and nobody wants them.
We try not to.
We try and keep most of ours, we really do.
I'd keep them all!
Yeah, I'd keep the lot of them.
But it comes down to finance, the money.
It's a situation no-one wants,
and something Steven's taken on as a challenge.
Come on! Hup!
He uses technology to improve his chances
of getting far more heifer calves than bulls.
When a heifer comes into season, Steven uses artificial insemination
to impregnate her with special semen.
The semen was sorted into male and female,
and then it's getting quite common now on dairy farms
that the farmers just buy the female sex semen
to inseminate their cows with, so you've got a high chance
of breeding heifer calves for replacements.
So that's me just pushing the end of the gun to push the semen out now.
So that's her done.
A fifth of all dairy farmers now use sexed semen,
which ups their chances of getting a heifer calf from 50% to 90%.
And now Steven's labour ward is full,
he'll soon find out if his investment has paid off.
Further north-east, in Fife,
it's a new day, and Stevie and Eddie are keen to see
if the struggling buffalo calf has made it through the night.
The calf was born yesterday.
It's looking fine, absolutely fine.
Right now, have good feed...
..from the mum.
Get up by self no problem.
It's doing really well.
It's absolutely brilliant.
It's up on its feet and it's stretching,
doing all the things you'd expect of a healthy calf.
Very happy. Aren't you, wee one?
It's like a completely new calf, but such a relief
that it's looking like it's going to be absolutely fine.
It's actually running around. Complete transformation.
And had we not tubed that calf, it would never have lived.
But it's nice to feel like we've...
..we've saved a life.
In the west, on the Isle of Mull,
Alastair and Janet have made another big purchase
for their fledgling farm.
They've parted with the remaining £1,000
made from selling last year's lambs on another new bit of kit.
We've got a bale trailer which will pick up a wrapped bale.
It goes on the back of the buggy.
It's an investment for us.
It makes things easier.
The tractor that we use isn't ours -
we've borrowed it from the farm that we manage.
So we're just trying to, you know, make our own way,
so we've got the buggy
and then we're just buying all the attachments for it.
Everything's a bit smaller, but it's easier on the ground anyway.
The bale trailer has come flat-packed.
Now all Alastair has to do is build it.
Two hubs.
A hitch.
A pin and shackle.
No instructions.
Probably wouldn't read the instructions anyway.
Just try and set it out like it's meant to go,
which I think is like this.
So this bit here will be a ratchet that lowers that down
and then we can pick up the bales and ratchet it back up.
Only slightly concerned that the galvanisers have filled the holes.
So I'll have to get the lump hammer and knock them out.
I've just discovered, while these two look the same...
..one's slightly bigger than the other.
I don't know if that's a mistake or if that's intentional.
These are the big, long bolts that need to go through,
cos it needs to go all the way through the frame.
But they don't fit in the hole.
I have to say,
for the £1,000 that it cost me to get the bale trailer,
I'm a little bit disappointed in the quality control.
Some assembly required.
I still need to drill out the galvanising
for some of the front bolts,
work out why there's two different-sized bolts
and try and work out everything else, so...
..hopefully, we'll get something sorted.
Further south-east, on the mainland,
in the lowlands of Dumfries and Galloway,
Steven and Tracey are in the maternity wing.
So the calving pen is a bit busy this morning. There's...
Well, the white cow there calved that white calf by herself
just about an hour ago.
This cow, she calved...
I think it was about three o'clock this morning.
She calved herself and had this little black heifer calf.
And one that we're just going to calve.
Steven's been artificially inseminating his pedigree cows
with sexed semen in the hope of getting female calves.
Today, it's good news so far,
because these two heifers are the result
of this special breeding programme,
and now he's hoping for the third.
But this first-time mum needs some help.
So we've got this young heifer into the crush there,
and I'm just going to probably need to use a calving jack to calve her
because it's time it was getting out and it seems a wee bit tight.
I've checked it's coming the right way,
but the water bag's already burst,
so you don't want to leave them too long after the water bag's away.
COW MOOS
Right, try giving it a pull.
Right. One, two, three.
Come on, lass.
Yeah, I'll put the jack on it. Tight.
It took hi-tech methods to get the cow in calf.
Now Steven needs an old-school tool to help it out.
It's just like a human woman giving birth and they use, like...
..clamps or, like, the suction cup. It's just an aid to assist them.
Once she gets their head out, that's the widest bit.
It usually goes to plan after that.
It's just kind of helping put a bit of pressure on.
It's still alive just now - you can see it moving.
That's a girl. That's it.
RATCHET CLICKS
That's it.
Good lass.
Big thud.
It's a successful birth.
There we go.
But is it a girl?
It's a heifer. I think.
Double-checking. Aye, it is a heifer! A heifer calf.
That'll put me in quite a good mood now
because that's three of my quite good-pedigreed cows
that have all had heifer calves. So...
Smiling! ..quite valuable calves.
Tracey will be shocked - she'll see me smiling.
Aye, I know. I am. I am shocked. I'm smiling!
That's a first in a fortnight.
Steven's female breeding programme is working.
In Scotland, the winter weather can be cold and unpredictable.
But mostly...
..it's wet. Very wet.
RAIN PATTERS
The Western Highlands are one of the wettest parts of Europe.
Rainfall here can be more than 4,000 millimetres a year.
And with rain...
..comes mud.
But, whatever the weather, animals still need to be fed.
On the Isle of Mull,
it's time to put the new bale trailer into action.
It's a really clever design.
If this hole lined up just slightly better, it would be perfect!
THEY LAUGH
Alastair and Janet have to feed the sheep and cattle
every day through the winter.
Come on, girls. Watch out.
I don't like the weather at all.
I'd rather cold and dry than this mud everywhere.
After a wee while slipping and sliding around in the mud,
you get quite sick of it.
Come on, girl. Watch your bum.
While Janet feeds the sheep...
..Alastair takes the silage bale to the cattle feeder
at the top of the hill.
ENGINE RUMBLES
Or at least that's the plan.
Looks like they're getting fed here.
The feeder that stops the cows trampling their breakfast in the mud
is at the top of the hill.
Don't do your back in.
If the silage will not come to the feeder...
ALASTAIR GRUNTS
..then the feeder must go to the silage.
Oh-ho-ho! The water just pissing in my boot.
That needs to turn a bit more that way.
Er...
Usually, we get the silage bale up to this top flat bit,
which is a little bit better,
but just with the mud, we couldn't get so high.
Whoa!
Arse!
If we lose control of it going down the slope -
cos it's quite steep, and it's a reasonably heavy thing -
it could be a bit exciting.
As long as it misses the buggy, it'll be fine.
Doesn't run any sheep over.
OK with that?
# Ta-da! #
Good shot. No-one's squished underneath.
In these rainy conditions, the animals need the extra feed.
When they get wet like this, and you can see it in her coat,
when they get wet and it penetrates and it's been raining long enough
that she's wet all the way to her skin...
Now, if you get a bit of wind, it just gets them cold
and uses up a lot of their energy just staying warm then.
The mud got the better of the buggy this time,
but the bale trailer is a big success.
Definitely the investment's been worthwhile with the trailer.
I mean, in this wet, we are making a bit of a mess with the buggy,
but when we're having to come up here with the tractor,
we were making huge ruts through it,
and it was just completely unworkable.
In Argyll, snow is still lying on the higher ground.
David is also keen to deliver his hefted ewes
some extra feed to help them through the cold patch.
In this last ten days, the weather's taken a turn for the worse.
It's got very wet and with the ewes, they're probably...
They'll be two months away from lambing,
so they need to get supplementary feeding going in from now.
This is a feed block.
It's got vitamins, minerals, protein, the whole lot,
so that saves us going up every day.
So we can put one of them at different points on the hill
once a week at this time of the year
and the ewe will come, they'll lick it and then they'll go on
and graze some roughage. It's about three times the price of hard feed,
but it saves an awful lot of time.
David's 82-year-old dad, Robin, lives on the adjoining farm,
so the plan is to feed both flocks in one trip.
So we'll drop some blocks off at the bridge. Right. Aye.
And then we'll go up onto your side, up past the hill park... OK.
..and put the blocks out on your side. Right. OK.
Robin's been a hill farmer all his life,
and has no intention of stopping.
Dad, he's in his 80s and he still helps out on the farm where he can.
We tried to retire him off 20 years ago,
which would have been absolutely the worst thing ever to do.
He was brought up on the farm from a young kid,
and if that's all you've done all your life, to take that away,
then you're taking a big part of their life away.
But at least he can enjoy doing the things he likes,
and it is great he's still here to do it.
To get enough top-up feed to 250 ewes on both hill farms,
they'll need to put out six blocks, spread out over 2,300 acres.
This is where the first block goes off.
We normally feed the ewes here, so...
They come down here, wait for feed,
and then they draw back up the hill again.
Putting the feed in the same place year on year
means the sheep know where to find it.
Well, we're halfway up, up the glen, er...
..about 2½ miles up from the house.
The sheep will come down from the face there,
and it is a wee bit easier for them to get it here,
rather than come all the way down the bottom.
That's why we put them up here.
Just like their hefted sheep,
Robin and David know every inch of these hills.
You know, I enjoy the hills.
It's always changing, as the seasons go along.
Everything changes all the time.
It's nice and peaceful and...
..you can do your thing and nobody bothers you.
When you're kids, it's a great place to go on an adventure.
Loved to walk up the glen.
You know, Dad would take us up and Mum would take us a picnic.
Very special place when we were kids.
That hour going up, feed the sheep, and coming back, back down,
is one of the most pleasant hours in the working day,
I think, anyway. For me, it is.
It's absolutely just a great feeling when you're out there.
Absolutely love it.
That's that.
Away home and get a cup of tea now.
SHEEP BAAS
Sheep are just up there. They probably heard the bike,
so they know that there's a fresh block coming.
So, probably, as soon as we go,
the sheep will be down there licking the block.
And where one sheep leads, others follow.
In Fife, Stevie also grew up on his family farm.
The family have farmed here for over 110 years,
so I was born in the village of Auchtertool,
which you can actually just see from here, and then, er...
..moved into the farmhouse as a small boy
and then lived all my days on Glentree Farm here.
So, yeah, I'm born and bred Glentree Farm.
Stevie's father was a highly-regarded stockman,
but he tragically died when Stevie was just five years old.
Unfortunately, sadly, I didn't get a huge amount of time with Dad,
but I've kind of been very much inspired by the stories
and the information that's kind of been fed back to me
from friends and family, etc.
But he was madly passionate on cattle and all livestock,
to be quite honest, and very talented at it.
That's definitely where my sort of born instinct
to farm and to work with livestock has come from.
And with his little buffalo calf, that instinct has paid off.
It's skipping.
It is just a good chunk bigger than a typical calf,
and I think possibly explains why it was just that bit slower to...
..be able to get its feet and get going.
But I've no worries at all.
I feel it'll be more than equipped to
go in with the rest of the herd now and it's not going to look back.
It's absolutely brilliant, this transformation.
I'm so happy.
And I'm astounded just how the mum has evolved in all of that
cos she was so at peace with us to help,
and letting us milk her and everything
and now she's kind of like,
"Right, OK. Well, my baby's fine - get out of the road."
Although we do still have to ear-tag it.
It's OK, mum.
Buffalo quite quickly sense fear, so if you're...
..nervous and apprehensive,
they kind of try and intimidate you a wee bit.
Whereas if you just man up, get on with it,
they know who's boss. So, time to man up.
It's OK, lass. It's OK.
Buffalo have quite strong veins
running through to the ends of the ears,
so you've got to hit a spot where there's no veins.
APPLICATOR CLICKS
I don't think the calf really feels it,
particularly when they're as young as this.
It's just one of these little things that has to get done.
APPLICATOR CLICKS
All done.
There you go, baby.
Now it's time for the nursery pen.
Well, they've had a wee bit of time to bond,
and this one's had time to fully recover.
So now, just putting them back with the group, really.
Cos we need the wee pens for the next lot that are coming through.
So it'll be fun for them too -
they get to play with all their pals,
they've got much more space to kind of move about.
But the little calf doesn't seem too sure about what lies ahead.
Just watch yourself. He'll follow the mum. Just...
Go on.
Easy there.
Come on. Right, you two.
IN VOICEOVER: Your heart's a little bit in your mouth.
The contrasting size between the cows
and the babies is pretty massive.
Come on. Here's mum.
Just a little bit nervous,
but he's now got to kind of go and find his way in the herd now.
HE WHISTLES
Go on. With your pals.
Eh? You're not sure.
The buffalo are actually amazingly kind of good as a herd,
so these are all mums and they will actually be quite careful
with the new calvies.
I'm pretty sure all will be well.
It's just really nice to see all these lovely, healthy young calvies,
to be honest. Quite enjoy watching them.
It certainly beats being in the office.
Next time...
..Mel needs to save a bull that's trapped and in distress...
I just don't want to make it worse.
Shut that gate now. Yeah.
..Robin and Penny have pony problems...
Nothing's going to get fed because of this damn pony.
Watch it doesn't go forward.
..and David is called to a cow in a crisis.
What I'm worried about at the moment is we have to get her out
or she's going to die.
Come in with that, Alastair.