What’s weaning?

We have been weaning calves this week – it’s an annual job where we take the half-grown offspring from the breeding cows, hold them seperate in yards for a few days, feed them hay and start them on their new lives of independence.  It’s kinda loud, this job, as the calves and some mothers bellow their protest for a day or so… well, the younger cows do.  The older Mama cows give a perfunctory bellow or two, and then wander off back to their paddocks to eat grass.

Cows can be very practical like that.  Many of them have actually been beginning the weaning process themselves – feeding their calves less and less as they grow big and able to forage and fend for themselves. The experienced cows are all ‘right, you’ve got it from here then?’ as they wander home.  The younger cows are still a bit outraged though, and hang around the yards for a bit longer.
It’s funny in the yards, ’cause while we can barely hear ourselves think over the bellowing, in its own way it’s kind of strangely peaceful.  We end up just relying on hand signals to each other as we do our alloted chores, because conversation is not really an option.

Mr Incredible and my Dad bring each mob of cows and calves through the larger yards and into the ‘pound’ (a small yard with lots of gates to different surrounding yards).

Mr Incredible then carefully sorts each mob – letting the bigger calves through one gate, smaller, less robust calves through another and the cows are sent up the crush (narrow alley) to the dip (a kind of cow bath where they are treated for ticks).  I stand by the crush and ensure each cow’s NLIS (electronic) tag is scanned into the computer, take notes where tags are missing, see that no calves accidently make it up the crush, and then count the cows out into the big yard from the ‘draining pen’ (the concreted pen at the end of the dip where the cows dry off after their bath).

Mum was there for a day – she quietly walked through this yard and checked out the newly seperated calves to see what the line is looking like this year. (Verdict: they look really good – lots of lovely clean polls (no horns), well-grown and good temperaments).

The background noise was also kinda helpful for me…. I couldn’t hear anyone rebuking me for being a bit slow at my tasks (ahem),  or getting distracted by taking photos of kids ensconced in their own little worlds (explanation of Dash’s activity here coming in the next couple of posts)…

… or snapping some still life images (Dad’s riding boots, spurs and notebook on the bench)

or groovy textures of the shed… hmmmm, I wonder if you could actually use this for a photo texture?

The dogs don’t seem to mind the noise either – they get a break from orders being barked at them (terrible pun, sorry).

Their main job is to help muster the cows and calves (I think Americans call them ‘pairs’) into the yards – they lie about in the sun amid the bellowing and dusty mayhem of sorting.  The dog here is Bernie.  He’s Dad’s dog and is pretty old and wiley. (No I won’t be tempted to make any connections here between owner and pooch…. should I?).

The cows are taken back towards their paddocks at the end of the day – we don’t take them all the way back, as some will just break through fences to get back to the yards. The boys don’t like fixing broken fences that much, so we kind of give them a choice – go home or hang round nearby.  Some keep on going now and the rest will soon follow – eating and resting up for the winter months ahead.

So there you go… a basic explanation of the scenes from the weaning yards.

We have a few more days of this job to go – we check on the calves regularly to prevent breakouts and keep them fed (those kids eat hay like there is no tomorrow). They will settle down a lot, with less calling out, and will soon understand that we are there to help them.  They will get some experience of moving from one yard to another without their mother’s to follow, and learn to walk calmly up the crush.  Then they will be walked out (with us on horses, guiding them out to their new paddocks).

I also get a little more involved as the young stud bulls (those with pedigrees) come back to the house paddocks for me to ‘handle’.  But more on that later…

Any questions?  Any offers to help out next year?  Perhaps some sponsorship from an earmuff manufacturer?