| As I was putting the lense cap on my camera, I noticed that my camera
was struggling to make sense of what little light it was getting. I thought it was pretty cool.
I bet those light spots are dust on the lenses, but that is not what they look like.
On April 11th, we needed to get one of the herds from the field to the barnyard for sorting, weighing, and such. About a third of the herd was on the far side of a pretty large and messy drainage ditch
and wouldn't come when called. |
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I had to go across and shoo them in the right direction. That really means saying something like 'Chugga, chugga, chugga!' and even waving my arms like a bird in extreme cases.
I got across at a narrow spot, about two feet across, but eight feet deep. They wanted to go a wider spot that was about a hundred yards away and six inches deep in mud and eight feet across. Yuck! I went back to my crossing.
We brought them in after feeding them pellets but before their usual bales of hay. So, they came pretty readily when called by Martin and chased/shooed by Bev and I. They went easily down the driveway except
one calf had gotten under/over the electric fence. It took Bev and I about half an hour to chase that very scittish calf back across the fence. |
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| In the picture above, the herd is mulling about in one of the yards around the barn wondering what is going on, where is the hay? Then we started sorting the calves from their moms. I stood at the
back moving and shooing as necessary to keep them at the end where they were getting sorted. Bev would open and close the gates as needed while Martin would chase the targetted cows or calves through the gate.
Here are a couple of short videos of about five seconds each (120K and about forty seconds to download) of Martin chasing. One is pretty tame and in one he really has to move. |
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| After the last of the cows and bulls had been led into their pen, I made this video of Bev opening the gate to let the remaining calves into their pen. As you could see above, the cows and even calves can move a lot faster than
Martin if they want to. A lot of farmers who raise cattle cattle keep horses and dogs who are bred and/or trained to help herd cattle. Martin relies mostly on training his cattle and avoids that expense. He keeps his pastures
small enough that he needs to move the herd every few days; that allows the grass to recover and keeps the herd used to being moved. |
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| The result was that we had one pen with all the calves (near end of picture) and another pen with all the moms (the calves are not yet weaned, though the are old enough to be if it were necessary).
There sixty seven calves, seventy cows, and two bulls. It took us about three hours before we finished doing all the necessary work with them and the cows and calves were bawling the whole time. They really don't like to separated. |
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In this little video you can get some idea of the commotion they made. It was such a relief when we finished and could let them get together again. Anyway,
Once they were sorted, we were ready to send the cows and bulls into the barn and weigh them. |
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They would be driven in through the lit door you can see along the
right side. Martin would get in a group of 20 to 30 and then break off a group of six or seven and head them into the very end (close to me and the camera here). The only way out would be a narrow opening to their right (to me).
It got a little wider there where Martin has doors and gates set up to send them to different places. I was there to get them past the wide spot and the bend and into the narrow path shown here (center of picture). |
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| Bev and Martin would then work levers and doors so that the lead cow would be caught in the scale while dashing toward the open door (light). That is where any work that needs
to be done on the cow is done. The only thing they needed to do other than weigh them was to put a medicinal oil on their back (against flies and lice as well as ticks and fleas I presume). |
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| The video above was from where I stood, but the light was not that good so I would switch to the exit side of the barn where the light was better to take pictures while they did the last of a group (as there was
nothing for me to do until we started the next group). Just after we finished the cows and bulls, the vet arrived with his assistant. |
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| We had to adjust the equipment so that it would keep the smaller calves from turning around and such. Then things went a lot faster as Martin and I
would feed the groups in, Bev would operate one of the levers and record the weight (as before), and the vet, John,
and his assistant, Nathan, operate the other levers and read off the ear tag, give the calf a shot, and apply a medicinal oil to the calf's back. |
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| Here is a brief five second video (the usual 120K file, about 40 seconds to download) of the smooth flowing machine. I never got a video of the end part when the calf or cow
scampers out (as soon as they release the levers) and dashes into the yard. Oh well. It wasn't very interesting I guess. |
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| Here is a picture of the Vet, John, who gave the shots. They arrived, started to work, finished up, and left all very
professionally and without fanfare. |
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| This is the vet's assistant, Nathan, who applied the medicinal oil. Martin could give the shots himself, but when there are a large bunch like this, it is so much easier to have the vet do it,
at least partially just because of the extra hands. Once we finished, we opened the gate between the pens with the cows and calves, and they happily found each other. |
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| Later Martin and I sorted out the eight cows and calf
pairs that he was going to sell. We sent the selected cows and calves into the field with the heifers. Then Martin called and I shooed them back down the driveway (shown here) to a new field.
Spring is just starting and there was a little grass that needed trimming. I set a leisurely pace and they kindly cleaned up the grass as we went. They really do prefer grass to hay, especially after a winter of dry old hay.
If you notice, on the left is tape we strung to direct the cattle down the driveway and not around the house. It is not electrified, but looks like it which is good enough for these 'trained' cattle. |
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