Cattle on the way

Well I spoke to Pearse after lunch and he said he would apply for cattle movement papers when he got home from work. He called me around 1800 and said it had been approved and they were ready to collect. I'm away from Friday to Sunday so that only leaves tomorrow evening and Thursday evening. I called Sean to see if I could borrow his trailer and he said I could have it tomorrow and would have it all cleaned out and ready to go.

So looks like I'm going to collect the in calf heifer and bull calf tomorrow evening. I'm pretty excited about this as its a massive step forward in managing the copious amounts of grass and getting our supply of meat up and running.

All going to plan, the 6 month old dexter calf would be ready for the freezer in June 2015. I'm still on the look out for an older bullock around the 18 to 24 months old mark that I can finish off here and bring the meat supply forward by a little bit.

The plan is to feed the cattle purely on grass and let them overwinter out in the paddocks, if we get extremely cold and wet periods I may bring them in for the duration but these cattle are bred to over winter in the roughest of conditions.

I am also getting a Kerry heifer, hopefully in calf too and a 6 month old Kerry bull calf. The idea is to rear them side by side and see the difference in the two breeds at butchering time. But not only on size, I want to include fat content and taste as well.

The two heifers will be halter trained and both will be milked while running with their calves, using the same system I have been using with the goats. May be separate them in the morning and milk in the evening.