On the 17th of October we bought three weaner calves.
Ahhh Livestock!
Now we could feel like "real" farmers! These were "mail order calves" so we had no real idea what they looked like...which, by the way, is NOT the way to go about purchasing livestock! Anyway, the calves arrived on the back of a huge truck at about lunchtime on the 17th. We directed the driver to the stockyards in the bottom paddock and off he went, with Chris and the girls in hot persuit.
On arrival at the stockyards the driver backed up and dropped the tailgate of the truck. He then proceded to hop into the back of the trailor in order to herd the young'uns out and into the stockyards. From then on things got kinda hectic!
There was a 4 inch "lip" on the tailgate that the calves had to step over in order to get out, instead of allowing them to negotiate this obstacle themselves, the farmer/driver gave the first calf a mighty shove over it. The poor little fellow lost his footing over the lip and ended up falling face first out of the truck and landing on his head and neck in the stock yard! Chris and the girls winced in sympathy and assumed that this was an accident.Then it was the next little calf's turn and sure enough, the farmer did the same thing! With a mighty shove out went the calf face first into the stackyard a good 18inches below the tailgate! Needless to say Chris and the kids were fuming!!
Now we know that big farmers don't have the time to "molly coddle" all their livestock, but we felt his actions were unnecessarily cruel. There was nothing much we could do about it so we paid the man and sent him on his way and turned to care for our new calves.
We went back to the stockyards to see how they were coping, but we couldn't see them immediately. We saw the steer up in the top of the paddock but there was no sign of the two heifers! All of 5 minutes had passed since we had unloaded them and they were nowhere to be seen! I was still sitting in the Hilux so Chris jumped back in and off we went on the great calf hunt!
We took off with a screech of tyres and cloud of dust and headed off down the road. Now we just happen to live near an intersection...which way did the calves go? It was a case of "eeny meeny miney mo"! We turned left and headed towards the railway lines. We had travelled about 1.5km's when we spotted the two of them running in the distance. We shot off in front of them and screeched to a halt and Chris and Sebastian jumped out. Chris managed to get them turned around and heading back towards home. We sent Sebastian off after them to help herd them back. Things were starting to look good and Chris and I congratulated ourselves for a job well done.
Of course nothing ever goes according to plan when animals are concerned! Everything was going fine untill the little beasts spotted the railway line. They took off down the railway line a disappeared into the distance. Now we were in trouble! If cattle are being persued they will keep running but we had no choice but to follow so we could try and find them!!! I was left in the truck on the side of the road while Chris and Sebastian were taken on a wild calf chase through someones paddock!
Not long after Chris and Sebastian disappeared, one of our neighbours ("Old Bob" as he is called by all and sundry) drove passed. I managed to signal him to stop and he walked over to the car and I explained our predicament. He agreed to help out and he set off to help find the errant calves.
While sitting in the car waiting for news I was beginning to wonder if this farming idea was such a good one! There is nothing quite like the death of a goat coupled with the sight of $500 worth of cattle disappearing into the distance to shake your confidence!
To cut a long story short Chris, Old Bob and Sebastian came wondering back herding the two little heifers in front of them.
Old Bob was to follow behind while we went on ahead to set up "road blocks" to stop them from shooting passed our farm. So far so good! We had the girls strategically placed by the time Old Bob arrived with the calves but once again things didn't work out quite as we had planned.
The smallest of the two heifers stopped just short of where Tarryn was standing with her arms out stretched (as we had read from a book!)With a snort and a roll of her eyes the little rebel barged past Tarryn, cut across the corner of the property and headed off in the opposite direction!With a muttered oath Chris took off after her and once again the chase was on! While Chris was chasing the rebel Old Bob helped get the other heifer into the paddock and then he took off after Chris. By this time another neighbour (the previous owner of our farm) had joined in the fun. A good hour passed before we saw the jubilent trio arrive with the little heifer. They had caught her in one of the poddocks a good three farms away from ours! They had roped her and put her in the back of Old Bob's truck.
Many years ago Chris had helped out a friend of ours, in Africa, rope calves prior to branding. He relied on this previous experience to help him with the heifer, however he was more than a little rusty and she ended up giving him a shiner for his trouble!
Anyway, this little exercise served as another learning experience for us all.
By sundown we had our new livestock settled happily in their new home and they were all munching quite happily on the new spring grass in the paddock.
It seems that we have a lot to learn about farming and animals but we are learning quickly!
Well four months have passed since the day of the great calf chase. We have learnt a lot since then, for which our livestock are extremely grateful!They are now very easy to handle and seem to think of us as "family" (does this mean I really am an old cow?). We have had some other interesting livestock moments but I will leave that for another day.