Horny bulls in the morning

A quiet start to the day was clearly not in order for this morning. After gingerly getting up and wondering if my legs would work painlessly (post hip replacement complications- a story for another time) I planned to head to the couch and sort through photos, write a blog post and drink tea, while hubby slept after a busy night at work.

Instead, I found myself dragging my work boots on and trudging through the paddocks to help Daryl  bring our bull back home.The horny mass of Limousine muscle had again escaped into the neighbours paddock. Surrounded by the attentive females, the bull, affectionately known as Donny, had no desire to return to his own herd, of rather lonely cows. After a few terse phone calls between Daryl and I, no answer from neighbours, we determined Donny must come home.

By the time I limped up the paddock, swatted a few hundred flies away and climbed over a fence or two (one of the few fences standing on the property, I might add) Daryl had successfully brought Donny back to his rightful herd. Looking rather smug, Donny appeared no worse for wear after his adventures.

Given the fact the fences on this place are either in a state of falling down, have already fallen down or don't exist, we felt it was safer to push the herd back down the morass.

Contented cattle heading to the green fodder of the morass

Thankfully cows, like sheep, follow the lead and go wherever the herd goes, moving them is easy work, as you can see in the photo they are content to go bush. With 80 acres of morass the cattle enjoy the lush green grass growing plentifully this time of year, the abundant shade and coolness of the dense bushland.

We have only a tiny herd, 21 in total not counting Donny, who is only on  loan, 12 cows and nine calves of various ages and sexes. They are a mix of Limousine, Murray Grey and Charolais. We hope Donny has done his job and we get 12 new calves later this year.

With 80 acres to explore it is bovine paradise.

However, no matter how smooth things go, there always has to be a glitch, check out the video on Rivergum3851 Facebook page to see the one that got away!

 'Til next time,

Cheers

N