Bond- Bewaldeth Bond..

Our Poll Hereford heifers this year have had an unprecidented number of still born calves due in most part to the size of the calves. Its all well and good for breeders to be pushing their breeds to produce a larger beast but if the cattle cant naturally birth them without difficulty then its really not sustainable.

So we have decided to use a smaller bull breed over our existing Poll Hereford cows and heifers. Enter Bond, Bewaldeth Bond. A Belted Galloway, currently classed as a rare breed in Australia and a slower growing animal with a natrually lower birth weight which produces a carcus that has won many awards. Belted Galloways are a very good grazing breed that produce more weight per kilo of grass than most other breeds and they tend to feed on more types of grass than other breeds and thus are good at weed reduction.

We are leasing Bond from one of the leading Galloway studs in Australia and we dropped him off with thie girls this afternoon. After a tiring trip Bond was more interested in grazing than hitting on the lasses. The lassess on the other hand were sizing up the new Lad on the block!

The progeny of a Belted Galloway Poll Hereford Cross will be a black cow with a white stripe with a white face.

Our first beltie

This afternoon Ben and I went and picked up a Belted Galloway Steer from a breeder 30 minutes away. Not only do they have the same markings as our Wessex Saddleback pigs they are also meant to be exceptional eating, a lower feed to meat ratio than traditional cattle and low in saturated fats.

We will soon also have a cow with a calf and in calf in the next little while. We are just waiting for it to get "in calf" before picking them up.

A friend for Maddison Lamb

Today we introduced Rory the calf to Maddison Lamb. Rory, named by Ben after Rory the racing car was one half of a twin born a week or so ago. His twin sister Maxine (Rorys racing car friend) seemed to be gelling with her mother but Rory didnt so hand raising it is. Introducing Rory to the bottle was a bit of a struggle but perservance paid off. As with Maddion, Ebony seems to have the touch with baby animals, Scott included and is succesfully getting the nutrients to Rory.

Rounding up Geese and cattle

This morning started with Benjamin and I venturing out to feed our Muscovy duck which wanders by the house twice a day in search of hand outs.

Our chicken shed is pretty much empty at the moment, only holding 3 bantam silkies, after, we believe the foxes culled a bunch of poultry including a number of ducks (Peking and Muscovy, guinea foul, some geese and a turkey. Over the past number of months however the remainder of the Chinese geese have been let out and free to roam. They have taken up residence at the house dam, the result has been a mass of geese dung around the dam and growth of algae related to the nitrogen from said dung. Anyway today Ben and I decided to round up the geese and put them back into their pen. I believe it was the Geek Farm Life folk who said that the way to coax birds back to their shelters was to, over time, feed them closer and closer to their destination. I had planned to do this as I set of with Ben on the quad bike. As we got close we realised that we could possibly round them up like we do sheep or cattle, which we did using the quad bike. We managed to get all but one back to the enclosure and that one darted under an opening in the fence and fled back to the dam before I could head it off. Later, feeling lonely that one goose decided to find out where his friends were and ventured to the chicken shed where we rounded him (or her) up also.

There is some debate amongst the family whether they will stay in the chicken shed due to their boisterous nature and ability to keep folks up at night. They may become cooked goose if that's the case.

Later that day we got the cattle in the yards, first the cows then the bulls in readiness for the Stock and Land Beef week sales. This involves showing the stock on the property for prospective buyers who wander from property to property viewing stock. The hair on the ears were trimmed so the tags could be viewed and a few cattle had lost their tags and had to be replaced. One of the largest of the bulls was named Benjamin after our lad of just under 3 years old who is around the same age as Benjamin bull.