Building the herd

We have a bit of a haphazard approach to our cattle.  We started our herd with a single bull calf turned steer, Fodder, that Grandpa gave Padawan and Little Miss as a present.  Fodder was more pet than stock and the kids got great joy in riding him around in the back yard.  To this day, Fodder will still respond to my husband's calls and will come to the fence for a pat (and a feed).

The herd had a great expansion in 2007 when we saw an ad in the Weekly Times for 4 highlands and a belted galloway.   Now, I love Belted Galloways (mainly because they were the first cow breed that I could accurately identify) and my hubby likes highland cows - it was the perfect blend.  Contrary to our usual bad luck the cows were in Toora.  To make the deal even sweeter, the people selling the cows owned a transporting company and agreed to deliver them for us!

 and the in-laws have a dairy farm which are a source of cheap jersey and freisian calves.  As a result we have a hotch-botch herd with all these breeds.

In June 2010 we purchased (at a subsidized rate) a gorgeous jersey calf.  Padawan and Little Miss called her Matilda.  The kids took it upon themselves to collect bracken from the block to take home to make a bed for Matilda.  She was afflicted with scours and my hubby had read that bracken had antibacterial properties that might assist young Matilda to fight them off.

Padawan with a feed bag full of bracken, cheered on by Little Miss

Matilda with her bracken

Padawan and Little Miss with Matilda

Sadly, Matilda did not win her battle and passed away overnight.  We were, all three of us, affected by her death.  The reality of farm life is often much less glamorous than people might imagine.  

We continued to get calves from the dairy when they became available.  We preferred heifers but, our luck being what it is, seemed to get a majority of bull calves.  Moving the posts and beams and putting them in place had served to strengthen my hubby's back.  He had injured his back in late 2004 reaching into the base of the shower to retrieve his toothbrush and it caused him a great deal of pain while he worked full time, especially spending 2 hours in the car each day commuting to the city.  Thankfully with more physical activity he rarely has twinges of pain these days.

Man handling the calves out of the trailer

In late 2010 we noticed that some of our calves were looking extra round.  They're on a pretty good pasture so my hubby wondered if they were just fat.  I suspected pregnancy to be the cause.  With some investigation, we saw that, among the herd was a Dexter bull from next door.  Our suspicions were confirmed when my belted galloway had a calf:

Belted Galloway with her Dexter-cross calf

I love running a beef herd.  I love that the calves get to bond with their mothers and get to have fresh milk whenever they are hungry.  It sits well with me that the calves are walking free and are protected by the herd.  I have been surprised to watch herd dynamics and see the handover of responsibility to older calves who appear to be put in charge of looking after the young calves while the adults graze.  We found that the two calves that we hand reared about 6 months prior to the belted galloway (and a few weeks later a highland) cow had her calf would shepherd the two newly born calves and would stand watch over them while their mothers wandered off to eat.  The newly born calves would be sleeping and the older calves would stay in close quarters until the mother came back to feed her baby.

The plan is to eventually buy in a bull and raise calves for sale to at least cover the costs of running the farm.  We have plans to fence the property into a number of smaller paddocks and get at least one more dam dug.  This would enable us to rest paddocks and create the ability to rotate stock across the farm to deduce pest loads.  Our eventual plan would be to run cows, then sheep, then goats and finally pigs on a paddock at which point we would be able to re-sow the paddock to a cover crop and gradually reduce the weed load on the block.  

The block is the perfect place for blackberries to grow.  While we have an abundance of frozen and jammed blackberries which are nutritious and delicious, we also have about half the amount of available for grazing and they are a nightmare if you try to walk through the paddock in shorts.  Blackberries are also an incredible trip hazard.  The habit of blackberry growth means that they make loops close to the ground which easily trap your foot as you walk through the paddock.

We also have a problem with cape broom which we had slashed in late 2011 and will need further slashing and potentially an autumn burn to get rid of.

Ragwort also exists on the property and is pulled up on sight.