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...
If 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 are struggling. We're definitely struggling.
A wee rosette. Over the course of a year,
six very different families let cameras onto their farms...
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 March.
The days are growing longer.
And the strengthening sun brings the promise of new life.
Yeah, I think spring is in the air.
They're certainly full of themselves. It's a good sign.
On the Isle of Mull, off Scotland's west coast,
the snow has melted from the mountaintops...
Come on, Ed. Come on.
..and new entrant farmers Janet and Alastair Taylor are enjoying
the start of a new season.
This is the fifth spring we've had here.
And every spring's different.
I love that spring marks the end of winter.
I'm not keen on winter.
I like the longer daylight
and, yeah, I love the fact that we are producing the future on
the farm, so we've got the lambs and the calves.
Getting everything ready for that, it's exciting.
Janet and Alastair are tenants of a 700-acre farm on the south-west of
the island, where they're slowly building up
their flock of 130 breeding ewes and
small fold of Highland cattle.
Beep beep, Patience. Beep beep. Come on, get out of the way.
This morning, they're feeding their seven pregnant cows.
Patience, you're going to have to watch your head.
Yeah, every one is named. That's Hermione over there.
Morag here. Morag, and Katie's just behind her.
They're named after the storybooks, Katie Morag.
And then behind them is Hazel...
..who is named after my sister.
She's an H. All the Hs are the same bloodline.
And then we've got... Goldilocks. Goldilocks.
If all seven cows produce a healthy calf,
it could mean an extra £2,000 at the sales this autumn.
They're all in calf, so the bull did a good job.
As long as Janet and I can do our jobs right
and keep the calves going, we shouldn't have any problems.
Hopefully, all the calves will come out nice and easy,
all the mothers will have plenty of milk and...
And we dream on.
And we dream on, yeah!
No farmer can afford to lose lambs and calves.
I mean, us more so -
we have less stock. But things can happen that you can completely
unexpect. I get very anxious about it.
You know, they're big animals and if they're stressed because they're
having problems, or if their calves are having problems,
yeah, I worry about them, like anyone does.
These Highland cattle will calve out on the hills.
They could give birth at any time...
..but nature has some helpful hints.
Her udder will fill up
with milk and it will get quite firm just before she calves,
and with cows like this that you can really get a pat on
and you can speak to,
they've got two tendons that run down either side of their tail here
and they, about 24 hours before they calve, will go slack.
So ones like her that you can scratch her tail, it's great,
because you can sit and feel them every day and then you'll feel when
they just relax off and then
that's it, sort of 24 hours, and she'll calve.
Pretty sure Goldilocks here's going to calve first.
She is uncomfortable and unhappy.
She is very, very, very loose in her back end.
It's not an exact science and Alastair's predictions don't always
come to pass.
It wouldn't be the first time that I've thought someone's going to
calve, and then someone else calves first.
Over on the mainland, in the mountains of Argyll...
She likes a wee scratch.
"Oh," she says, "that's good, that's good!
"In there, that's better. That's just perfect!"
..hill farmer David Coltart is also waiting for his cows to calve.
Just moving stuff around so I can start cleaning these pens,
ready for the cows calving.
There's one or two that are pretty close.
I just don't want to be caught out.
The non-glamorous side of farming.
Picking up rubbish.
Unlike Janet and Alastair's hardy Highlanders,
David's beef cows spend the winter indoors.
In his shed are 42 expectant mothers who could calve at any moment.
It's pretty handy. I can walk behind after I feed them and I could
get an idea how they're changing, because I'm just walking,
every day I'm in, just watching how they're changing themselves.
Some of these cows - that's a second calver -
starting to slacken. She's a wee bit away,
but her vessel's starting to fill up, or her udder, I should say.
Keeping an eye on his cattle is a full-time occupation.
So David's rigged up his shed, Big Brother style.
Having the camera up there makes a big difference because
San will have it on on the computer in the house and she can constantly
monitor it. When I'm doing my lambing rounds,
Sandra's covering for me in the shed here too.
I can see it moving around looking at me at the moment.
Wife Sandra can keep an eye on him.
Hi, dear!
I'm not in the pub. Still here.
Yes, I can see you, David.
Back at the house, Sandra's on cow-cam vigil.
Not exactly the most exciting thing for somebody to be wanting to
watch online. A lot of other things people could be looking at.
Exciting enough for us, though.
It's like, "So, what are you doing?"
"Sitting watching cows on my laptop."
"Oh, how exciting! So what will you do after that?"
"Oh, sit and watch cows on my laptop!"
"Right, that's what you'll do most of the day?"
"Oh, yeah. In between everything else, I'll sit and watch cows!"
Either that, or go over there and do something with them.
Are you hungry, David?
My breakfast. I think it's about 11.50am.
Corned beef, cheese, ranch dressing and mustard. Mmm.
And I'm starving. Tasty breakfast.
Travelling time... Excuse me.
You eat on the go, because if there's something happening
in the shed, I might not be back till seven, eight o'clock.
Yeah, try and grab something and run.
Yeah. Even then, getting dinner and then go back to the shed.
We're not quite at that stage yet, so I'm just building myself up.
Like a bear for hibernation!
Yeah. Stuff your face, cos you might not eat for hours, right?
Everything looks fairly quiet but then,
that can change in a hurry.
Nature won't be rushed.
Two days later, the first birth of the year.
There we have... It's a nice wee calf.
Come on. Come on, girl. That's it. On you go.
That's the cow safely in the pen. With a new calf.
So I just need to make sure that the calf sucks.
So I'm just going to leave her in peace and watch with the camera from
the house. Great. First calf.
90 miles south-east, in Kirkcaldy in Fife,
maverick farmer Stevie Mitchell breeds buffalo
for their premium meat.
His business depends on a production line of new calves.
He's hoping new bull on the block Heineken has got
the latest batch of females pregnant.
It's amazing how much he loves to get a wee pet and say hello
whenever we're around.
Four months ago, Stevie selected Heineken from the beef herd and put
him to work impregnating his cows.
Easy, now.
But for a young, two-year-old virgin, it was a daunting task.
Well, that's the big question at the moment.
It's not getting beat up any more.
He seems to have found his place in the group,
but Eddie and I have been debating for the last couple of months
whether or not he's been doing anything or not!
Stockman Eddie is with the buffalo every day and has doubts about
Heineken's prowess.
He's very friendly, a very quiet beast,
but I never see if he's working at all right now,
because maybe he is working through the night.
Never knows.
It's possible he is just a little bit too young still,
but it's really important he has got these guys in calf,
so I'm quite nervously awaiting the vet coming to give us that answer.
Hi. Euan, Steve, how are you doing?
Local vet Euan McKee will scan the cows.
The stakes couldn't be higher for Heineken.
We've given him every chance but if he's not got any of them in calf,
unfortunately he will be away for burgers.
I'm trying not to really contemplate that too much until, yeah,
I'd like to stay positive, hopefully that's not going to happen.
He's a nice lad. It's what you want, he is the future, you know,
in years to come, it will be his females that will be entering
the breeding herd and at that sort of temperament.
It's so important, especially with animals with horns
like this, that you have animals that are co-operative and friendly
and not aggressive by nature,
and he's definitely not aggressive at all by nature which, hopefully,
that will come through in his progeny.
Why do you look so sad today?
Bloodshot eyes, haven't you?
Since a near-fatal attack five years ago, Stevie is determined to breed
tameness into the herd.
We've turned him into a big, petted lump, haven't we?
Put a lot more...
..into selecting animals with good temperament,
just for the safety of everybody.
We are a lot more ruthless,
kind of got a bond with him now,
so we would hate for him not to be able to
stay and be part of the herd,
so we just need for these cows to be in calf.
I don't think I've ever been as nervous.
21 female buffalo are being scanned today.
Vet Euan is familiar with the process, less so the species.
This is very much our only buffalo client,
so buffalo is very much outwith our kind of usual remit of animals.
But we just kind of extrapolate from the cow a wee bit.
This is an ultrasound scanner,
so this basically sends some sound waves that then bounce back all the
different structures inside the buffalo and goes back to
this receiver here, and the image goes through onto my goggles.
So the probe goes in the buffalo's bum...
The signal only goes so far, and the further it goes,
the worse the image. So the easiest way is to go rectally
cos the womb sits right below the rectum, so...
It's the moment of truth.
She's about three months. Yay!
Can you see the image there? You can see it there, actually.
That's the foetus there. You can see its backbone.
Three months means it must have been Heineken,
so he's got lead in his pencil, by the looks of it!
Fingers crossed. It's all good. Yes, all good, Eddie.
See how the rest of them finish up.
It's a good start for Heineken.
So, she is..
..from the scan, anyway, she is not in calf. That's the bladder there,
but you can see the picture, that's her womb, no fluid, nothing in it.
But not such good news with cow number two.
She should be a bit more in calf. She's not, actually.
Not in calf at all? There is nothing in the womb.
Heineken's not safe from the chop yet.
On Mull, a new calf has arrived.
But Alastair has lost his bet.
It's not Goldilocks, but Morag who has given birth overnight.
Morning, Morag.
Healthy. Happy.
Strong. What we want.
It's a great relief to have the first one out.
Yes. It's all fine and healthy.
Hopefully they'll all be so easy.
Oh! It's had a poo, that's a good sign.
The rest of the girls won't be far behind.
We'll be like an anxious parent.
Now calving has started...
..Janet and Alastair are preparing
for another batch of imminent births.
The spring lambs.
Janet, you'd really enjoy this.
We're just clearing out the shed, ready for making our maternity ward
for the lambing ewes.
Hopefully.
It's less than two weeks.
The countdown is on.
Prepping the pens involves a bit of make do and mend.
The plan here is to make this stack of pallets and those pallets and any
other pallets we can find into the pens for the maternity ward.
Take this and have a look and see...
We should really, you know, when we do it... I know.
We should write down how we did it. No stealing the baler twine.
Good girl, are you going to tie it up?
You got the string, good girl!
Do you want some string?
Yeah. No, you can't do that.
Why not?
A, It's tiny.
And B, I've got nothing to hang my hay hecks on.
So why don't I just drill two holes in it and screw it to the pallet?
Because then I can't use them anywhere else,
and I don't think they'd survive that.
But they always fall down. No, they don't.
They do. No, they don't!
Crazy ewes make them fall down.
If we had
fancy gates or fancy - you can get purpose-made ones -
that'd be amazing, but we don't have the money for that.
So you just make do with what you've got.
Yeah.
What, oh!
Right there. Let's go and have a cup of tea and a bit of cake.
Yeah, cup of tea.
DOG BARKS
All right, Rusty!
The coming lambs will provide half of the farm's income this year,
but until then, money's tight.
What are you looking up, Alastair?
I'm looking to see how much it would be to buy some hay hecks.
Not that I really think that we're going to buy any,
but it's always nice to know what I can't afford.
It's £47 including VAT for one.
That's still a lot of money. That is.
If you bought... Five or six. Yeah.
It's a frighteningly expensive time of year.
And you kind of have to have to laugh about it a bit.
I mean,
we're struggling, we're definitely struggling at the moment.
It's at the back of your mind, it's worrying you all the time.
But we're just trying to hold on and just keep going and that's all we
can do. The list of things that we'd like to buy is huge.
Actually, the cows, I need a new ring feeder for the cows.
We're getting too many cows for that one ring feeder.
So we're going to... So that's it spent.
That's gone. Not even started into the spring
and we've already wiped out...
We've not even got the lambs that are going to make the money. Yeah.
Back to work. For the farm to ever make money,
they'll have to increase the livestock they sell each year.
It's a long game with no guarantees.
Preparations for the spring baby boom are also under way
in Dumfries and Galloway.
Calving happens all year round at the dairy farm
run by brothers Stuart and Steven Roan.
It ensures their 320 cows keep producing milk.
But once a year at springtime,
life on the farm becomes even more demanding,
as they also have over 500 sheep to lamb.
Everything's just about to kick off, basically.
The grass is starting to grow.
It's about to start lambing, and a lot of the day,
the cattle will be going outside to graze grass.
Come on, girls! Come on!
With lambing about to start,
Stuart needs to bring the pregnant ewes in from the fields.
Come on, then!
I'll wait up here until you get them up.
God! I'm going to lose my wellies!
He's persuaded wife Aylett to help round them up.
Come on, then, come on!
Go on, Aylett, keep going!
Maybe we should've got the dog, it might've been faster.
Oh, she's gone off again now.
Move it!
Come on!
Come on, sheep, come on, then!
Well, thanks for appearing!
Who's getting by them?
You. Are you shutting the gate?
No, I'll just let them run wild again(!)
We have a perfectly good sheepdog, and we have a quad bike and a buggy,
and he's got me running around a field in the heat.
Don't do heat.
Although the idea of lying on a beach, sipping pina coladas,
bikini, good book, sunglasses, nobody to have a go at you.
Just...that sounds bliss.
And here's three together.
Stuart needs to pen the sheep
according to the number of lambs they're carrying.
Splitting them off, three, two, ones.
Green on their backs, three.
No mark on their backs, two.
Reds, one.
That's the theory, anyway.
Dealing with cows day in, day out, he's a bit woolly handling sheep.
Oh, you swine!
Would you like me to come and help you, dear?
Oh, for...
Stand back a wee bit, a minute.
Don't lose it. I'm not going to lose it!
There you go.
What's the problem? Fine, easy.
These things make my day, make it all worthwhile.
Come on.
This is only 56 of them.
Still another 500 out there somewhere.
So... It's not quite job done yet.
But it's a start.
Right, must be lunchtime now.
Keeping sheep on their poorer land
helps the Roans weather downturns in dairy prices.
But in a bid to gain back control in a volatile market,
the family has embarked on a bold venture...
PHONE RINGS
Good afternoon, Roan's Dairy.
..branding their own milk for sale direct to doorstep customers.
Would you like to sign up with ourselves?
Now then, we deliver on a Tuesday, a Thursday and a Saturday.
Right? No, that's not a problem at all.
In just over a year, the business has grown to 1,000 customers,
but running it is taking its toll.
No, don't know, what am I doing?
This is what happens. What do you do first?
Everything needs done, and what do you do first?
It's a time-management issue.
I don't have the time to manage it!
I'd love to say I'm totally on top of it, but I'm not.
And the more information of THIS that I store in my head,
the less of everything else gets stored.
Like, I don't remember to take my children to their swimming lessons,
don't remember to deliver the eldest to a birthday party that he was
meant to be at.
Yeah, my entire head is just jammed up with Roan's Dairy.
There's got to be easier ways to make money,
and I would actually quite like to see some of it.
Not a lot, just enough. A couple of quid would be nice.
Right now, the business barely breaks even.
They'll need another 1,000 customers to make the work worthwhile.
Back on the buffalo farm near Kirkcaldy in Fife,
the future of Stevie's new breeding bull is still uncertain.
Of the four cows scanned so far, only one of them is pregnant.
If he hasn't managed to continue his bloodline,
it'll be back to the food chain for young Heineken.
Well, for his sake, but also...
..it's very important as a business that these guys are in calf,
and that that conveyor belt of life is sort of progressing, so...
I'm confident. Hopefully.
He's got 17 more chances to prove his muster.
So she's in calf.
In calf? Yep. So, three months?
You can see the foetus there.
Yep, pretty much the same as the other one.
And there's a wee heartbeat there as well,
you see a flickering left of centre.
That's his heartbeat. Brilliant.
So she's in calf. Again, about three months. Brilliant.
In calf again.
Three months? Aye.
Not saying too much till it's finished, but so far, I'm very,
very happy.
Yeah, she's in calf.
Yay!
Job done. Yeah, thank you very much.
Happy days, are you happy enough with that? I'm very happy with that.
Happy days.
16 of the 21 cows are carrying Heineken's calves.
I'm delighted.
I just couldn't have asked for much better, to be honest.
He obviously has been getting in at night, and doing his stuff,
so it's been great. We've just literally not seen any action,
so to speak, but as long as he's doing the job,
I don't care how he does it.
You do feel a little, sort of, maternal, kind of.
You know, I really like Heineken.
I'm just so pleased that he's going to be here to stay.
In Argyll, grass is beginning to grow in the valleys.
But the surrounding mountains are yet to turn green.
There's not enough nutrition for heavily pregnant sheep.
With lambing just weeks away,
it's time for hill farmer David to gather in his flock to see who needs
extra feed.
But in the shed, his cows have other ideas.
Well, we've been getting ready to gather,
and she just popped out a calf, this beast, so...
All great plans.
All right, just watch her.
So I just need to get another pen ready for her before we go.
OK, go on.
Sandra was going to be coming with us,
but it's better her watching the shed when we're away.
And my brother Alastair, if there's anything calving,
he can put it in the pen when we're up the hill.
Just at times, you know, you have to go and do jobs.
There's a time of year we take the sheep in, the same time as calving.
So...
Sandra will be over here keeping an eye on the rest of them.
Cos this one caught me off guard.
With Sandra on calf watch, an hour later than planned,
the gather finally gets under way.
He needs to round up 150 hopefully pregnant ewes roaming wild
six miles from the farm.
Here, dogs. Come on, get up.
Come on. Away, Chance.
A good hill dog like Chance is invaluable in this rough terrain.
But David has to keep a close eye on him at this time of year.
Just being a wee bit canny with him.
With them being in lamb, I don't want to harass them too much.
I hope they're in lamb anyway, but we'll find out in a wee while.
I don't want to count my chickens before they're hatched.
As the dogs round up the sheep,
a surprise is spotted in the flock.
There's a wee lamb there, Jamie.
There's a wee lamb there, which, I don't know how that got...
I know how it got there, but it shouldn't be born at the moment.
And it's not just one.
We just have to be very careful that she doesn't
mismother the lambs,
so we have to be gentle with the sheep coming down the hill here now.
With over a mile still to go,
it's a dangerous journey for such young lambs.
The ground is boggy and treacherous for animals so small.
Robert, hey, Robert, is there not sheep down the other side of that?
The wee lamb fell in the burn.
It's quite a steep wee bit.
Luckily, Jamie heard it as he was passing, and it was sitting
in a pool of water. Just like that, that wee lamb could have gone.
PHONE RINGS
And things are now quieter back at the farm.
We're just about 20 minutes away.
Right, OK, thanks.
That was Sandra saying there's another calf in the shed.
I should go away more often, then the calves would probably come.
On the home straight, the second twin's hitched a ride, too.
It lost its mum coming down.
I just lifted it up and she'll pick it up in the shed again.
Poor wee souls.
First lamb. Yeah.
LAMB BLEATS
Oh, God, that sound, we'll be sick of it in two months' time.
BLEATING
These lambs are lucky.
In the inhospitable Highlands, life is fragile.
As many as 40% of newborns can die.
Birthing in the wild is fraught with danger for mothers, too.
Even hardy native cattle breeds can get into trouble.
On Mull, Alastair is checking on another new arrival.
A second newborn calf.
Oh, looking good today.
Goldilocks has given birth.
But it didn't all go to plan.
Far too much excitement and drama yesterday.
As predicted, Goldilocks calved eventually and...
..being young and foolish, she chose a bad place to try and calve.
Janet and Alastair were on their daily patrol
when they spotted Goldilocks lying contorted on the ground.
My first thought was that she might have been dead.
What must have happened when she was calving is
she managed to get her horn dug into the soil in the ground and rolled on
top of her own head, and that was her trapped and stuck there.
Alastair managed to roll her out of the ground...
..but then she was dangerously stuck on her back.
She's obviously quite panicky about being trapped
and not very good on her feet,
so then she was falling over, so
I was having to hang onto her and try and hold her upright.
It's quite a stressful time for her and for everyone else involved.
The adrenaline takes over and you just have to get on with it
and deal with it.
Goldilocks and her new calf are lucky to have survived.
I'm sure she's sore today from it.
But other than that, she seems none the worse for wear.
If it had been a big calf and she couldn't get it out,
that would probably have killed the pair of them, being stuck like that.
On a small farm struggling to break even,
the loss of a single animal can be a financial disaster.
I'm feeling a lot more relaxed now that I've got two out.
There's always that worry before they start calving,
worrying about what size the calves are going to be,
but now seeing the calves that are coming,
they're just a perfect size for coming out.
It's been a dramatic start to spring.
But the signs look good for the rest of the mums.
MUSIC PLAYS
Oh, you had your music loud this morning.
I did have my music loud this morning.
I needed something to wake me up.
So Janet and Alastair head to the beach to blow off some steam...
..with the rest of the family.
No, no, no, no!
Managing the balance of everything can be quite hard.
It's a lot of different responsibilities
and lots of different pulls on you.
Are you going to take some photos? Yeah.
Recently, we've been spending too much time racing from one job to
the next job, to the next job, to the next job.
We need to take the time just to enjoy where we are
and what we've got.
It's very easy to get caught up in the rush of everything.
But really, it's nice to sit back and enjoy the sunshine.
They're having a blast!
They love the beach.
You love the beach, yeah!
We both love it.
I love working outdoors, I love the challenges, every day is different.
I love working with the animals, I absolutely love
working with the dogs.
SHE CHUCKLES
Now I'm going to get wet feet! I've got sand in my feet.
Despite all the new life arriving on the farm,
Janet and Alastair aren't feeling broody themselves.
We both kind of came to the decision together without much thought,
really, that we both don't want kids.
Much to the disappointment to mothers and mothers-in-laws.
It's hard for people to understand that, because that's... In society,
in a way, makes you have kids,
but it's just something that we're just...
..certainly right now, no, but it's always kind of been that way.
Gently.
Happy with what we've got.
We've got our fur babies, that's why the dogs are so spoiled!
They're the kids.
Are you just picking up the crumbs?
Have you all had one now?
Is that everyone? Do I get one? Do you want one?
Sit! No, I'm not sitting.
If I sit down, I'll not get up again!
Janet and Alastair may not have plans
to start a farming dynasty on Mull...
Incoming!
..but in Dalbeattie,
school's out for the seventh generation of the Roan family.
Aylett is picking up sons Fraser and Fergus, plus their cousins,
Andrew and Lucy, as sister-in-law Tracey is stuck at the farm.
The last time I heard from her, she was shouting at cows, so...
Seven-year-old Andrew shows every sign of wanting
to carry on the family business.
Staying in for a little bit,
getting changed and then going up to the farm and doing my jobs.
Right, two buckets of big cake.
It's every morning we do this, and every night.
We call it cake but it's not actually real cake!
No, it's not real cake.
It's a bit like Groundhog Day sometimes
because it's seven days a week.
Right, let's go.
Oh, come on, then, keep going.
There's days when you're like, when it's cold and you can't feel your
fingers and you're wet
and, oh, you would like to have a nice normal nine-to-five,
but then what we are doing is for the next generation.
As a family, we probably sacrifice a lot.
We don't have the holidays or the time away but you put your heart
and soul into a farm and
I think it's either in your blood or it's not, and you just do it.
You've got to have a bit of passion for it.
He seems quite happy to work. We have to pay him, mind.
£5 every Monday.
£5 every Monday!
He's quite good value at that.
He gets his board and keep, mind.
For all their efforts, the dairy earns as little as 2p per litre,
sometimes less, on the milk they sell to wholesalers.
Delivering their own-brand milk may be their best chance to secure
the farm's future.
And their hard work isn't going unnoticed.
We have been nominated for the Scottish Rural Awards 2017,
and we are in the Rural Enterprise category.
To be nominated as such a young business is quite an epic feat
for us, actually. It is just beyond words, really,
because we are now on a national platform against people
who do what we do, but way, way longer.
We are just a wee tiny family business, struggling to survive,
struggling to keep our head above water, and people who don't know us,
people that aren't part of it,
have decided that we're worthy of being looked at.
It gives you a really good boost, actually.
They will be up against nine other rural businesses
from across Scotland
at a big awards night in Edinburgh.
Whether or not we win anything is very different,
but we need to wait and see.
It's new for all of us, so watch this space.
In Appin, David has started pregnancy diagnosing the ewes
he's brought down from the hill.
We've got the colour green for yeld and orange for twins.
The singles won't have any mark on them.
Yeld sheep, the ones which aren't pregnant,
will go back to the hills.
Singles will be kept in for lambing
and the twins will be separated off and given extra feed.
That's a twin there. There's movement about there.
That's a lamb there and that's a lamb there.
He's already got a set of twins rescued during the gather.
As the sheep funnel through, he's looking out for their mum.
They're relatively new lambs.
She'll maybe still have a wee bit of stain of blood around her tail.
LAMB BLEATS
Oh, no, yeld.
It's like a needle in a haystack.
Finally, the family is reunited.
You know that's its mother, when it's allowing it to suck.
Their mum will teach them how to survive out on the hill.
Was that two?
Yes. Lambs born and bred on this tough land are vital to David.
Every one of these wee lambs, they are a very precious commodity.
Especially in these hard hills
because you can't buy new lambs to just stick onto them.
They're bred onto the bit of ground so keeping that hardiness there
is the most important thing.
If it's organically bred from the flock that's there,
it's the best thing we can hope for,
rather than have to try and buy in, because bought-in sheep,
they are from different ground.
Often it doesn't suit them and they just don't do.
As the last of the flock is scanned, the results are in.
There was 149
scanned just now.
There's 11 empty, 26...?
27. Sorry, 27 twins, and the rest are singles,
so 111% is the starting point.
You know, actually, there's a set of twins in here, so 28 twins.
A nice end to a beautiful day.
Great weather, the gather went well and the scanning went well, so...
..happy days.
But before he can relax,
David has to check on the latest cow to have given birth.
Her ear's down a wee bit.
I don't think she's right, actually.
No, she's not right.
I need to take that calf out.
The half-tonne cow could crush her calf.
I think the cow's got a big vessel, she's made a lot of milk.
I'm not sure, it could be lack of calcium.
She's staggering about there, so...
..I think I need to get the vet because she's quite bad.
Hello, John?
Hi, John, David Coltart here.
I had a cow calf here just a wee while ago.
She's really staggering,
she's got a huge vessel and I think she needs some intravenous calcium
or whatever, because she's staggering all over the place.
David fears she has milk fever,
a life-threatening condition caused by a dramatic drop in calcium levels
close to calving.
It weakens muscles and can lead to heart failure.
I phoned the vet
and he's coming straight up to get intravenously calcium
into her blood. Normally speaking, we can give
calcium under the skin but it's going to be
too slow to be absorbed into her, and she needs it direct
or she's going to die.
She'll die within a couple of hours if she doesn't get
calcium into her bloodstream.
So, having a good day with scanning, so you're on a high...
..and then you're taken back down like that just in an instant.
Working with animals,
farmers get used to the fragile nature of their fortunes.
In Dalbeattie, Tracey and Aylett are hoping that luck will be on
their side tonight.
Hello. Sorry we're a bit late.
God!
They're getting ready for the Scottish Rural Awards gala dinner.
I was just going to stick a headband in. No!
I was like, "Could I just put a headband in, an Alice band?" That would do.
It's just go to the stage now where I'm just not bothered.
I don't wear make-up.
I don't go out that much and now I'm getting the full works.
I could get used to it, though, that's the problem.
They are shortlisted in the Rural Enterprise category.
It's really exciting to be going and to be part of the final ten.
It's brilliant for a young business,
so to get even recognition outwith Dumfries and Galloway,
is a huge thing. If team Roan came away with an award,
it would be amazing.
It'd be great. We're staying over.
Yeah, a phone call home, "We'll be back in two days' time!"
The chances of that are beyond slim but it would be really,
really good and it would just, I don't know,
I know the job is worth it, but when you're at it so many hours,
things like that are just nice and actually what we're doing is good
and we're doing it...well
and it's being liked and well received,
it's just the recognition.
It will be a girls-only night, as husbands Steven and Stuart will be
needed on the farm. It would be nice if all four us could go up together
and share this experience, but the nature of our business is that
we have to stay at home. Cows and kids don't always mix.
So, yeah, we'll go and show face.
I think we're better showing face, be the face of Roan's Dairy.
It's quite nice being pampered for a change.
I'm sure the cows and calves will appreciate it when I come back home.
Oh, that's fab. Is that all right? Yes, no, definitely.
Thank you very much indeed, ladies.
Bye.
I feel like a new woman.
Back to the farm and then we get to escape.
In Appin, vet John Blomfield has arrived.
I'm happy John's here. Definitely happy.
Where is she, David? In the back here, John.
Let's have a look, then.
He's got here within half an hour, but if the cow
does have milk fever, every minute counts.
I just knew the minute I saw her, her head was...
..and her eye and her ear was slightly down.
She's short of calcium so we're
going to get a bottle into her...
..which should mean she can stand up straight rather than...
..all over the place.
So we're just going to...
..run it straight into the vein and hopefully
she'll look a bit more cheerful.
Without calcium, in a matter of hours,
all her muscles would stop working,
including her heart.
I think at the moment because her system's down,
she just doesn't really...
She's not fully compos mentis at the moment.
She's a particular cow who's made a huge amount of milk and then...
..the body just struggles to readjust essentially,
once it's made all that.
It's just a very
soluble form of calcium that's going straight into her vein...
..to restore the calcium level in her bloodstream.
I think she's a wee bit brighter.
She is, isn't she? If you just tie it on fairly low down, David, and
keep her laid down. I'll throw this other one under the skin.
And then we'll...
You can see she's getting a little bit lively already.
The shaking, John? The shivering's normal,
that's just the muscles all coming back to life again.
They all start to shiver when the calcium gets in.
It tells us we're hitting the spot, anyway.
Once the calcium takes effect,
she'll recover quickly, but will be disoriented and upset.
Watch out, David, you might need to...
..cheer her up a bit.
She's quite strong but I'm on the right side of the posts!
There we go.
Good.
Looks a bit more like. Yeah.
I think we can say we've fixed her, based on...
..just looking at her, really.
It's life's delicate balance.
They don't have to go that low to die really because the heart is one
of the busiest muscles in the body, and if it's struggling,
it struggles as much as all the other muscles do, so they can easily
die if they're not managed.
The wee calf's going for a suck.
There is a remarkable difference in a matter of...
barely five minutes.
There we go, the calf's got hold now, look. Yeah.
That was a close shave.
A very close shave.
After a good scanning and then we almost lost a cow,
so... But that's farming.
Some good days, some bad days, but luckily,
the good day continues because we managed to get a result there.
A stiff dram would go down very well.
Very, very well.
Evening chores are in full swing for Steven and Stuart in Dumfries.
But in Edinburgh, the night's still young for Aylett and Tracey.
The Scottish Rural Awards gala dinner is about to begin.
I'm on the red carpet! Very nice.
Amongst the 400 guests,
110 finalists will vie for 11 awards.
Roan's Dairy is nominated in the Rural Enterprise category.
It's quite exciting. We're there! Roan's Dairy is right there.
I'm a bit nervous but it's because you're somewhere
you not familiar with and you're dressed up,
and not in your usual, you know, waterproofs and wellies.
Aylett and Tracey are representing the business
whilst Stuart and Steven watch the livestock
back home.
I can tell you, Steven will be out in the shed,
looking to see who's bulling.
He'll be doing his final check, kicking in silage,
scraping it in and doing a final check of his girls.
Thank you so much, ladies and gentlemen.
Welcome to Dynamic Earth for this evening's wonderful awards ceremony.
I'm Fred MacAuley, I'm delighted to be here.
There's ten people in the category altogether but there are three
places in the category so there is a very slim chance that we could get,
or as my son says,
that means there's seven people going home with nothing, Mummy.
So, yeah, thank you for pointing out the obvious!
It's their category next.
The Rural Enterprise now, an extremely broad category,
open to all businesses.
A tricky one, trying to find the finalist for this.
Community spirit is important for the Scottish Rural Awards and when
a business supports and invests
in the local community, it shows a forward-thinking approach.
I feel sick.
The top three are called in reverse order.
Rural Enterprise highly commended - Buth Bharraigh -
and here to collect the award, Sarah MacLean.
We're not getting anything in this category.
It's a strong category.
The runner-up in the Rural Enterprise category is a farm diversification
business that has really thought outside the box.
The runners-up, Roan's Dairy.
Receiving the award, Tracey and Aylett Roan.
Whoo!
On you go.
Thank you very much.
You OK? I'm shaking.
Oh, my God! Did that just happen?
I'm lost for words and I've got the shakes!
We did it!
I didn't think sitting in the hairdresser's this morning,
getting our make-up and hair done,
that we'd be sitting here holding runner-up.
It might not make us any more money but, hey, I'm pretty chuffed.
No, probably won't. I'm sure the cows will really appreciate it
when we show them tomorrow.
I'll make sure they're shown in the morning.
"Look, girls, look what you've done!"
With the ceremony drawing to a close,
there's little time to celebrate, before the daily demands of the farm
start again.
We did it! Well, blooming heck.
By the time we get home,
I've got to go out and do milk deliveries
so there will be enough time for
me to go and get changed and have something to eat and then back out
on the road again.
I've managed to stay in heels for a good few hours now.
How can long can the eyeliner stay on tomorrow?
The hair comes down, I'll be delivering milk with a face,
there will be some kind of nasty shock.
I'm totally going to feed calves like this in the morning!
Next time,
the farmers work flat out as the spring onslaught
of lambing and calving kicks off.
Obviously, as you can see, his head is very swollen.
And it's stone-cold, his head.
My childbirth was not that easy!
There's the danger point,
got to come quick and fast now or it's going to strangle itself.
We could lose this calf if we're not careful.