Gypsy day

Another significant event in the New Zealand farming calendar is almost over. We call it Gypsy Day but the reality is that it stretches out over two to three weeks. The beginning of June marks the start of the new dairy season. We see farms changing hands. We see sharemilkers taking up new contracts. And we see herds moved to winter pastures.

A sharemilker is a person who lives on a dairy farm milking the owner's herd for an agreed share of the profits. Sharemilkers often build up their own herds at the same time. So when a new contract comes along, it's time to pack up the household possessions, the kids and the cows and move to the next place.

It's not just the sharemilkers moving their cows. Around this time most dairy cows are dried off ready for calving. They are moved off nutrient rich milk platforms to leaner winter pastures. The vacated fertile soils are then prepared for spring regrowth in another 3-4 months.

The reason why Gypsy Day is a significant event is that there are so many cows in New Zealand. As at the end of 2011 there were an estimated 4.82 million cows in the national milking herd. Compare this with the national (human) population estimate of 4.43 million as at 31 March 2012. You can see why it's such a big event.

Stock are either transported by truck or walked to their new homes. Most herds today are reported to be four or five times the size they were 20 years ago. The number of cars on the road has also risen dramatically. Here in the Wairarapa I've gotten used to looking out for handmade signs on the road saying "stock", especially around this time of year.

Photo courtesy of author possumgirl2 under Creative Commons licence.

Our Highland steer

We have had cattle on our lifestyle block for a few years. They are supposed to be easy management. I can't say I've seen that side of them, but maybe that says more about us than the cattle.

We need to have at least two cattle at all times, so when one of them is ready for the freezer, we scurry around the region looking for a weaned 6-9 month calf. Weaned is good so it doesn’t have to be bottle-fed. Six to nine months of age is good because it can fit on my trailer for transportation to our place. Sometimes this is drama-free, sometimes not.

The lucky little guy or girl joins two others at our place, and then Mr Before-and-After can come and reduce the numbers back to two.

This system works pretty well. Except for one thing. Because we don’t raise them, the cattle never really get tame enough to lead around. However, they lose their natural fear of humans because they are in contact with us so often. The result is a small herd with a mind of its own.

After too much “mind of its own”, my wife came up with the idea of keeping tame cattle on the property that we can breed from. Maybe we could get a bull and a couple of tame heifers, or maybe just the heifers.

We did some research and decided that we liked the look of Highland cattle.

Sure enough, our neighbours Eileen and Ted were selling a Highland steer. Here was our opportunity to try the breed out. If we liked him we would get more of them. If we didn't like him, well there's always Mr Before-and-after…

Because we live less than a kilometer apart, we naively thought that Teddy could just trot down the lane to us, egged on by a carrot. Not so, we were told by Eileen & Ted.  We needed a stock truck.

On the morning we went to pick him up, I saw exactly why. The stock truck backed up to the end of the yards where Teddy was waiting.  The plan was that he would walk calmly along the race and into the back of the truck. We thought.

At that point things started to go a bit pear shaped. Teddy got a bit grumpy. He decided that he didn't want to be in the yards anymore. And he didn't want to go in the back of the truck.

So this animal - 1,000kg (2,200 lbs) of muscle and bone plus a couple of groin-gouging horns - just jumped out of the yards. Horns waving, eyes wide, nostrils flared.  Twice.

My 7 year old's eyes were just about popping out of his head. I felt like he looked.

Well, we eventually got him into the truck and to our place.  He burst out of our yards like, well, like a bull out of a gate. Our other two cattle came rushing over to see Teddy. Maybe they were coming over to investigate, or maybe they were trying to establish dominance over the newcomer. We had a couple of laughs as Teddy quickly made it clear that Teddy was the boss.

He has calmed down a lot over the last few months. Apparently. Not quite to the level where I feel I can hand feed him, but I've certainly seen others do it. Me? I still have too much respect for those horns.

A bit of before and after

We have learned a lot about cattle management since my potentially disastrous start. The problem is that most of our lessons have been learned the hard way. Take Mr "Before-and-After" for example.

My wife and I have an "understanding". She's happy for us to raise cows for consumption, as long as she only sees them "before" (happy in the paddock) and "after" (frozen packets of meat neatly labelled).

When a cow is deemed by us to be ready for the freezer, I will ring up a “homekill” guy and give him a very good description of the animal. He turns up when I'm at work, does something loud and messy, and takes what's left to our preferred butcher.

The first time I dealt with him he asked me if I wanted to keep any of the offal. The conversation went something like this:

"Do you want the tongue?"
"umm yeah, sure"

"What about the liver?
"okay"

heart too?"
"sure"

"the tail is good"
"okay"

"how about the kidneys?"
"umm yeah okay".

I didn't think anything more of it until I came home that night. Mr "Before-and-After" had been and done his job. Upon leaving, he presented my wife with a bag containing a couple of kilograms of grey steaming entrails. She was pregnant at the time and easily persuaded to part with her lunch.

We don't keep the offal anymore.

Last week Mr "before-and-after" came and dispatched one of our heifers, best described as moody and uncooperative. Her nickname was "Fillet Steak". She'll look great in our freezer.

Train v cows

Yesterday morning I received yet another reminder that I don’t have normal problems.  My choice of where I live and where I work means that I have all sorts of creative reasons why I’m late for work.  Yesterday I had to call in to say I was going to be late because there was some “stuff” on the tracks.  My workmates are used to me by now although they make fun of my “inability to live anywhere normal”.

Early in the morning a north-bound freight train slammed into cattle that had wandered onto the tracks.  Two were killed instantly and one had to be euthanized (fancy name for shot) on site by police.

Tranz Metro spokeswoman Cathie Bell is quoted as saying that the southbound trains to Wellington were cancelled and replaced by buses.  This isn’t quite right.  They did manage to get a couple of trains through late.  It did mean that 1,000 commuters lost at least one productive hour of their respective days.

She goes on to say "It's very disruptive for our passengers and probably not very pleasant for the animals either”.  No argument from me on both counts!

The local Carterton District Council will now speak to the farmer to see whether they will take further action.  One media report says the cows pushed through a rotten gate.  If there is negligence on the farmer’s part they will probably take it further.  Maybe.  If there’s no negligence then the issue will be left to be settled between rail company KiwiRail and the farmer.

Newcomers to town (called townies) are often criticised for complaining about or interfering with farming practices.  This is possibly one example of the reverse.

As they say out here in the country: Where there’s livestock, there’s dead stock.

A tale of two cows

One of the most useful items of equipment I bought for our farm is a single axle trailer from Masterton.  Over the years I have used it to cart all sorts of things around the Wairarapa.  Firewood.  Trash.   Quad bikes.  Furniture.  Palm kernel.  Vacation toys.  Sand.  Mulch.  Timber. Dead stuff.  All sorts of things.

A few years ago we decided we would get some cattle.  Wouldn’t it be lovely to eat our own beef?  We met a guy in the local pub who had some cattle for sale.  I know, we are slow learners, or maybe that’s just the way that things are done ‘round here.  Come to think of it, that’s how we ended up with the ram that wasn’t.  The difference this time is that my wife and I had kind of agreed that we would get cattle.  She even came with me to look at them.

My job was to get the two cattle back to our place.  I had my own trailer and a stock crate.  The cattle were both quite small.  I had no need for a stock truck.  I could just transport them in my trailer for the 15 minute drive from Battersea to Greytown.  What could go wrong?

Well, I picked them up okay from Battersea.  The farmer had them in his yards.  There was a heifer (girl cow) and a steer (castrated boy cow).  We gave them a quick drench to get rid of any intestinal parasites and completed the paperwork for transfer of cattle.  Then it was time to head home.  The guy warned me that one of them “was a bit of a jumper” but told me how to deal with that.

Sure enough, I hadn’t even gotten out of his driveway when the heifer started looking like she was going to climb out of the trailer.  Following his instructions I slammed on my brakes.  The heifer fell back into the trailer and was suddenly more worried about staying upright than climbing out.

I got out of Battersea okay and on to the open road that connects Battersea with Greytown.  The speed limit is 100 km/h.  I was only doing around 70km/h (44mph).  I kept on eye on the cows through my rear vision mirror.  That heifer was up to something.  I just knew it.  She was sniffing around the back of the trailer.  I wasn’t too worried at first.  There was nothing back there.  Except the latch pin that held the rear door of the trailer closed.

The next time I looked in my rear vision mirror I couldn’t believe what I was seeing.  Something I never want to see again.  Flashes of hoofs and horns gradually retreating into the distance.  The heifer had nudged the latch pin out with her nose.  She had either jumped or fallen out and was rolling on the highway, slowly coming to a halt.  I stopped the car and just sat there for a minute.  The steer meanwhile jumped out to join his companion.

I will admit to a “Thelma and Louise” moment.  That realisation that you have messed up real bad.  The best thing to do might be just to keep driving.  Anyway, that thought stayed with me for less than a second.  I had to get the cows off the road.  I needed to get them into some yards so I could get them back into the trailer.

The cows really decided for me.  They shook themselves off and started trotting back along the grass verge toward the farm they had come from.  Problem solved.  I put my hazard lights on.  Rolled the window down.  Stuck my elbow out the window and tried to look nonchalant as I drove the wrong way along the highway, herding the cattle in front of me.  I think I may have even waved merrily to a few other motorists.

The farmer fell about laughing as we limped back to his yards.  Helped me load them back on to my trailer.  The heifer had some grazes from the road so we sprayed them with iodine.  I tied some netting over the top of the trailer and made sure the latch pin was tied into place.  Then it was time to go.  Again.  The farmer followed me home in his truck.  We unloaded the cows and sat with a beer while we watched them adjust to their new digs.

Cattle are amazingly resilient animals.  Within minutes they were behaving like they had always been there.  It took me much longer to get over the ordeal.