Drafting Cattle

Philip and I spent the morning drafting cattle.  It's a job that I don't particularly like.  All the years that we lived on a cattle station I very rarely helped in the yards.  My father-in-law was a bit of a stickler for a "women's place is in the home".  Not that I minded as I enjoyed cooking meals for all the hungry workers.  

Some folks are "inside" people and some are "outside".  I am definitely the inside type.  I have always been the station book-keeper and enjoy the role and I thoroughly enjoy knocking up a meal.  Craft comes in high on the list of hobbies along with photography.

Back to the drafting.  It was all my fault that we were even drafting in the first place.  You see while Philip was at Julia Creek it was my job to shift the three mobs of cattle each day.  We have twelve paddocks on our little block and in order to run the number of cattle that we want we have to operate a rotational grazing system.  By doing this we are looking after the health of our soil, grass and cattle.  As soon as the cattle have taken off the top third of the grass it is time to move.  

We have had very little rain here at Julatten over the past four months and that is very unusual for the tropics.  When I moved the cull/weaner mob into what we call the house paddock I also gave them the lane to munch down on for additional grass.  The only thing that I forgot was that this mob would only be one gate away from our breeder mob.  Now, some of the cull cows are cycling so the bull in the breeder mob managed to push his way through the gate to get to those cows.  Consequently I now had two mobs joined into one!  Not quite a disaster but we really did not want those cull cows pregnant again.  As it is we are certain some of them will be!

So back to the drafting.  It didn't really take us all that long.  It's just slow because we are checking off a list and because all these cows have calves at foot it is imperative that we get the draft right.  There is nothing more frustrating than finding a cow calling for a calf that has found it's way into another mob!  Anyway, all is well and the three mobs are now all back in their rightful place.