Storm's back home
Posted: Tuesday 22 July, 2014
Our bull, Storm, had a run in with some wire a few weeks ago. All was well - healing cleanly and he wasn't lame but the scab's come off and the flies were on it so we took the trailer up today to contain him so we could get some antibiotic spray on it.
I planned to put him out with the cows 12th August, aiming for the same calving dates as this year (23-25th May) but I decided if we were getting him in the trailer anyway, we'd bring him home a bit earlier.
The calves are just over eight weeks old and, if he serves all four cows today, our calving will be 1st May, which is fine.It means Bonnie's a wee bit younger than I would have liked but she's quite well grown.
Storm loaded really well - especially once he got close enough to the trailer to smell Annie from Saturday, despite it being cleaned yesterday. She must be pongy - actually, I thought she might be in season or just past her season at the Show.
So they're all together - apart from George and Charlie, who are still at Astwood. Blizzard was sorting Storm out - reminding hime who's boss. And it's no him :-)
UPDATE at 15:26 Breeze appears to be Storm's companion of choice :-)
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Comments
Rosemary
The three cows that calved this year did so on 23rd, 24th and 25th May but no, we didn't artificially synchronise them. The vet said that in small, close knit herds, the females' oestrus periods may synchronise naturally.
If we can get as compact a calving period next year, that will be great but I guess we were just very lucky this year.
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Steptoe
Friday 8 August, 2014 at 5:23pm
It was a dull wet day here today and I just sat at my laptop and started to search around for more info on Bees and Shetland cattle. I want to have both to add value to what we already have. I came upon, for a second time, your interesting website and so I have perused this for quite a while today and I would add, I have thoroughly enjoyed doing that too.
But and sure there is always a 'but'. when I read your comments on mating your cattle, in a group so to speak, I was confused ? I wondered, were you injecting them in order to have them all come into season at the same time?
I once sponged my sheep [I used to run a commercial flock of some 250 Texel ewes] to achieve this but now I have 56 ewes and don't bother with that. Too many sheep lambing down at one time can be a nightmare in terms of mis-mothering!