I have come to the realisation that when you own a farm you don’t need to go to the gym. Herding animals around, fencing, gardening and all manner of farming activities and chores, in my opinion, far exceed the energy required for a circuit class. My case in point occurred the other day at Diamond Forest Farm Stay when we had to drench (read worm) the cows as well as ear tag, ear mark them and ring (read de-sex) our little bull calf.
Our cows generally don’t mind being herded . . . as long as there is food involved. However, it would be much easier if there was a huge herd of them purely because they like to stick together (mostly) and if you can convince a good portion of the herd to go in a certain direction the rest of the herd will, in all likelihood, follow.
Unfortunately we don’t have a large herd. We have only seven Jerseys to herd (Nugget, our Bull is always done separately): Bambi, Bambi’s little bull calf Alfie, Jasper- a steer, Molly with her little heifer calf –Susi, Princess Leia the orphaned heifer and Victor- the biggest pain in my rear end, my calf muscles, my thigh muscles and my poor winded lungs. I’ll get back to him in a minute. And by the way; don’t laugh at the names of our herd. They came from the kids that were here at Diamond Forest Farm Stay when they were born. Children who first spot a newborn on our property get naming rights; that’s the deal. That’s how poor Carrie Fisher got immortalised in our cow! If it had been a boy we might have got Darth Vader or Luke Skywalker so Princess Leia suits us just fine!
As we clearly aren’t as good at herding our animals as we would like to think (if you have read my blog post on herding the alpacas you will know exactly what I mean) we decided to herd the cows into the yards without the help of our dogs who are actually worse at herding animals than what we are. Also, given that our cows aren’t of the polled variety (that means they have horns- yes even the girls) we decided to leave our guests out of the herding process for safety. That didn’t stop our guests from taking ring side seats on the other side of the fence to watch us ‘farmers’ professionally herd a few cows. Or not.
Victor, our 300kg steer with his beautiful set of horns, clearly remembered being in the yards where we had de-sexed him (a process requiring a tight rubber band to be placed around the top of his testicles to cut off all blood circulation, which firstly creates numbness and then the tissue dies and said testicles fall off) and he didn’t want to go back in there again. Understandably, he didn’t have fond memories of those yards. We weren’t keen on having him in their either. The last time we drenched him he had attempted to leave the yards not via the gate but through the yards. Worse still he was almost successful and we’d had to fix the yards before we could use them again. Unfortunately for all involved he had to go into the yards. It was the only way to drench him properly and, as any farmer will tell you, properly drenching your stock is imperative for healthy animals.
All was going well. We had manoeuvred them off the hill, across the dam paddock and up the lane way to the yards. Bambi had gone straight into the yards as she had spotted a lovely pile of food inside (strategically placed there by us)and she wasn’t going to miss out. As soon as Bambi bellowed and took off for the food the others started to follow. Mark and I were patting ourselves on the back, congratulating ourselves on a job well done when suddenly Victor realised that to get to the food he would have to go into the yards. And he was having none of that!
He stopped dead in his tracks, turned on his heels and charged straight past us and back down to the dam paddock where he stood and bellowed his head off for his friends to join him; which they promptly did; all of them except Bambi who had her head in the food and Princess Leia who, having been bottle fed, kept following me around and bunting my backside so that I would pay her some attention and feed her. (Princess Leia’s bunting is beginning to concern me a little because soon she too will grow horns and her bunting my backside will start to become painful and somewhat dangerous.)
Because of Victor, the next hour or so was spent by us running around in the hot sun chasing steers and heifers one by one back into the yards, much to the amusement of our guests. At least they got a good show! Victor wasn’t making it any easier. He avoided us numerous times and continued to coax his fellow herd members further and further away from the yards.
I distinctly remember cursing Victor and threatening to turn him into roast beef if he didn’t behave. Victor wasn’t cowed by my threats at all and given that he weighs approximately 300kg and I a measly 65kg (or so), I could see his point. We resorted to using the quad bike to out run him because that walking rump steak that we call Victor was fast, damn fast. The quad bike did help a bit but since I was the one on the ground running ( Mark is far more experienced handling the quad than I am) I certainly got a good work out.
By the time we had finally managed to get them all in the yard, Victor included, got them drenched, ear tagged, ear marked, the bull calf well on his way to becoming a steer and back to their paddock on the hill, Mark and I were exhausted. So next time someone asks if I would like to join a gym with them I think I will decline. I get plenty of exercise right here on the farm. On the other hand if they want some free exercise I am more than happy to let them lend a hand when we need to drench the cows. I’m sure Victor won’t get any more cooperative any time soon and we could certainly use the extra pair of legs.