Hamish Tractor Boy Reports

It was a big day at Gowan Brae: do or die. 

Are you coming? 

​We needed to get the Autumn calvers in and draft off the yearlings, put them with the growers, collect up the other cows and return them to the Autumn group, move Puggsley the bull in with the cows, move everyone across by one paddock and feed out.

Finally through the gate after weeks of not wanting to move

The humans clearly needed my help. We left Bella the bulldog puppy, known as noisy, looking after the yard back at the house. I supervised from my position on the tractor as is required of "tractor boy". 

New hayshed working well

Feeding the Spring calving mob, need to fetch them a hay ring

Big potentially dangerous feed units...

Here they come! 

Job done. Now relaxing on couch in front of fire dreaming of charcuterie hanging in the pantry.

Educating the steers

While I've learnt the drawbacks of having ex showstock that are too quiet (they have lost their proximity response and balance point, so I have great trouble getting them out of the paddock!) I do aim to have quiet, calm, paddock approachable stock. Young stock wean off their mother with the entirely understandable urge to run away as fast as they can can from the peoples.

We aim to break this response down to close proximity workable, maybe touchable in a couple of ways while retaining 'workable' stock that will still drive and be musterable. We do this in a few ways. The first requires the patience of just sitting or standing still in the paddock and just letting stock come to you (not hard when you love being with your cattle!). Cattle are naturally curious animals and will eventually get close enough to come and sniff or lick you if you stay still and don't startle them.

The second is feed training. To this end we feed for reasons of topping up Winter feed as they enter 'yearlinghood' to maintain growth rates as pasture production slows, but also for temperament training. We introduce hay rings and the idea that the peoples bring food. As they get more used the being fed we move among them, getting closer over time and resulting in very mildly wary but not 'pet' stock.

I realise lots of Highland owners want pets, but that's not our aim as boutique Heritage Beef producers. This is part of our annual cycle, as always aiming to produce the best treated, happiest and highest quality cattle and therefore beef.

Sue & Paul

Feed Budgeting (it's more interesting than it sounds)

So we are blessed here with abundant rain, lots of rye/clover pasture and so happy, naturally raised, grass fed stock. We also minimise re-drafting so they can remain in their instinctive 4-6 pod friend groups. A big part of managing this system is feed budgeting. We initially did this informally, judging paddocks as they presented.

We are moving to a more systems approach, working out our rotation pattern in a more planned way. Calculating what cow-calf units, heifers, steers and bulls need in terms of dry matter intake allows us to plan feed needs over a season, by paddock, and meet any deficit with additional meadow hay to avoid overgrazing and paddock plugging over our wet Winter months.

Key to this is predicted monthly pasture production per hectare, and also training stock to take meadow hay at appropriate times. We are heading into our Winter feeding period now and so are training younger stock to feed from hay rings.  

Feeding out a few square bales to accustom young stock to hay who cannot reach into hay ring

Our future growers and breeders

Feed growth table for our area

The South Gippsland Secret

This is the norm here for the next 4 or 5 months, heavy mizzle in the mornings with enough moisture in the air to run off the roof and put water in our house tanks. Everything is wet through and the soil is wet yet nothing registers on the rain gauge. Our notional annual rainfall is 1,250mm/year so the reality is a lot more than that. This means even when we're not getting regular winter rain, any time the temp gets high enough we get grass and everything stays a lush almost starling green.

There are 26 head of Highlands there... 

The Dew Point is the thing. 

Damp Canach with boots

Great late Autumn

No big rain days to fill dams but many days of light drizzle and heavy mists have kept the soil moist. Couple that with a very mild May and we are still growing grass and clover. Many, even most, days over the magical 15degC for grass growth. This is setting us up for a good Winter, with less need for supplementary hay feeding, although we have it in the hayshed. Heading into the cold months with about 0.6 head per acre, a bit more than we normally aim for, should be doable this year if the light moisture and warm conditions keep up for the next month or so. 

Haunted Paddock

Moved the steer/bull group from lower header tank paddock to what we on paper call paddock M. In reality we call it the haunted paddock. It's a lovely paddock, not our biggest, not much shelter but otherwise a nice paddock. For all of this it's the paddock stock are most keen to get out of when it's time. Very odd. Last pic of a steer being moved from header tank to Blackwood dam paddock.

Bless the little darlings

The joys. Arrive home in the dark and rain to find our beloved Autumn group in front of the house have turned the hay ring upside down and stripped 100s of m of electric fence wire off and onto the ground - still live. 1kV and 25A in the fence system. On with the anorak and boots, out to collect wire, staples, hammer, strainer etc from shed to fix before someone realises there's no charge in the fence.  Too dark to check whether anyone has damaged a horn...

Water, weather and rainfall

Last year (2015/16) we had a failed Spring and adrier than usual Summer. Winter was roughly normal and so our dams filled as usual by the end of May. Last Spring was then very wet and we had enough warm days for the pasture to really come along.

Data from our own web enabled weather station: Here

Autumn this year has been dry-ish though and May this year is looking to be fairly dry after a s few days of rain this week. After the nice spot of weather coming through today,  the rest of the month is looking like a wash if you'll pardon the pun.

Sneaking Puggs

50cm gap between new hayshed and electric fence. Clear evidence of forced entry. Cow pats in front of round bales. Much bellowing. Twice. Who could it be, surely not 1.5t Puggsley our bull?

Pic 1: yep it was me

Pic 2: smashed gate, sew it up with electric tape

Pic 3: very unhappy and much foot stamping after touching nose ring to 10,000V