Cattle update

While I was back at Moora last month I separated the cattle into 3 mobs to better be able to balance out their nutrition needs.  Our cattle herd presently consists of 12 cows, a bull, 10 heifers and 8 steers.  

The cows are all 3 years old or older - and have had at least one calf.  We have one cow (Belle) who is now 9 years old and a second (Annie) who is 6 years old.  The others were born in 2004 or 2005 and bought after we moved to Moora and had the land to increase our herd size.  The cows have been with the bull since early January and are now well pregnant (I hope).  They have all now had their 2008 calves removed so their nutrition needs are for basic maintenance through until calving in September or October.  It's not good to have cows too fat at calving - they are more likely to have trouble and require our intervention.  Our cows are miniatures - which means they are supposed to be no taller than 120 cm at the hip.  They still vary widely in their build and weight.  We have one (Lyn) that is over 600 kg.  The smallest (Lika) is only 344 kg at last weighing.  Both had a healthy calf last year without assistance - which is the gold standard for cows.

We've put the cows in a reasonably bare paddock with as much wheat straw as they want.  It's not high quality feed, but they are all in good order - and dropping a bit of weight over winter won't hurt them.

The heifers are young cows that have yet to go to the bull.  We have 2 that were born in 2007 and another 8 from last year.  We are waiting until they are about two years and  three months before sending them to the bull.   We want them to be a good size without being too fat when this happens.  That means staying on their Mums until they are well over 200 kg (about 9 months) - then good steady nutrition after that.

This means they get the best grazing available at this time of the year.  We also have a bale of the wheat straw in their paddock - and they get to visit the feedyard every couple of days where we feed them higher quality oaten hay.

The steers are castrated bulls - and they also need good nutrition so that they grow steadily through to a slaughter weight of between 500 and 600 kg at between 2 and 3 years of age.  This is older than 'commercial' farmers would consider reasonable, but we are told that the Galloways take a little bit longer - and that it's good beef when you get to it.  So far, the only steers we've sold have just gone to market - which means I can't directly confirm for you just how good it tastes.  The 8 steers we have now - two 2006s, four 2007s and two 2008s are being lined up for slaughter after we're back and starting our local food business.

I separated the heifers and steers into two mobs as a couple of the bigger steers seemed to be constantly trying to mount a couple of the heifers.  I know the steers are sterile, but all animals involved were expending energy I'd rather was going into growing.  I've got my son rotating the steers and heifers between the feedyard and the best paddock.  We'll see what happens.

We're still very much starters in the cattle business.  There is so much to learn about managing them - but even more about managing our pasture.  It's far from clear to me at present just what is a reasonable carrying capacity for Moora - particularly as we want to get a sheep flock as well once we're back.