Mrs Down's Diary - Nov 11 2009

The only cattle left with calves at foot are who surprised us with late deliveries.

As is usual we managed to persuade assorted friends and neighbours to help us get the cattle home. With a posse of mates, everything is possible and the job looks easy.

Only a couple of you, and the cattle I am sure sense the gap in defences and hare off down the road as soon as they come out of the gate.

Instead of going straight across and into the farmyard.

This year however, more problems were encountered in the field than coming across the road.

When John assembled his troops about two thirds of the cattle were already standing at the gate. The old cows know what the job is.

They recognise that they are being fed nearer and nearer to home and the smell of that enticing silage clamp is wafting across to them.

But the few young stock remain to be educated.

When John went in to try and drive them out of the field, all the young stock turned and hared it back across the field into the corrall.

Cows following.

Luckily John had shut the gates into adjoining fields and the herd got no further than the collecting area provided by the corrall.

He shut them in and allowed a few minutes to settle down.

Then opened up and walked slowly back across the field to the main gates. This time the entire herd followed. No fuss.

Straight through the gates and by then, he stood back and they galloped inot the foldyard.

Straight to the silage clamp. Greedy girls.

But with the entire herd inside, the yards were beginning to look perilously full. Last year we lost a number of calves out in the fields.

They succumbed to an infection in the ground, which we were able to treat, but which, by the time it was diagnosed, had already proved fatal to a significant number of calves.

As a result, the yards looked as though potentially they will be over full with stock by the turn of the year.

That's the trouble with young livestock.

They will keep growing if you keep feeding them.

However, in conversation, or gossip, with another farmer, John heard that this year's heifer calves are making very good prices now.

In fact, John reckoned that the heifers he had recenlty sold after keeping them and feeding them for a full year, were only making about a hundred pounds more than if he could sell them as they stood in the yards.

So a good number of this year's weaned heifer calves have gone off to market this week. Result.

Plenty of room in the yards and an improvement to the cash flow.

Always a good thing.