Steph and her boyfriend are fattening some cattle to take to a show in August so they are in our stock yards being fed rations twice a day. Now Steph is away at the moment and hubby works 12.5 hour shifts an hour away from home, leaving at 5 in the morning and not returning till nearly 8 at night. It's cold, dark and raining so he asked now that the bull is out of the paddock surrounding the stock yards could I please feed the cattle in the morning. Being the good wife I agreed, the only cattle in this paddock are 3 weaners and a heavily pregnant stud cow and I can get over the that. Basically I am a big wuss when it comes to the cattle (and horses) and I stick to doing the bookwork as my contribution. Not yesterday....
I got up early, showered, dressed and pulled on my gumboots (wellies, waterproof boots, whatever you call them), they are quite pretty gumboots I got in Canada last year. I wandered out the back, let the 2 dogs off, the chooks out - so far these are normal everyday things so no problems. I got up to the hay shed and went to the feed area where hubby had left the feed mixed up - 1 for a young bull, and 1 for the steers, but there were 3 buckets. Back to the house to phone hubby at work who said he had mixed up extra for the afternoon feed and told me which was which. Back to the shed taking the phone with me in case I had any more questions. The handle was broken on the big bucket so I sort of fixed it and off I went to the yards. One of the weaner bulls became my new best friend and was 2 foot off me at every step, and Stephs dog was chasing all the cattle all the time so there was a lot of yelling at dog and bull. Made my way into the yards and the mud, like I said we have had some rain, about 100mm, (4") of slow steady heavy drizzle over 5 days, lots of mud, straight up over the top of the gumboots. Lucky my pants were tucked in so my feet were dry. I slodged my way over to the feed trough on my left and poured in the bulls feed, oops, I should have put it into the covered feeder on the right. Bugger, oh well, he'll work it out. Slodge, slodge, slodge (imagine the sound effects of walking through ankle deep mud) through into the next yard to feed the steers. More mud, deeper, stickier just like porridge and just as I go to lift the bucket to put in the covered feeder, I trip, the handle comes off and half the feed ends up in the mud, luckily I didn't. S*&%! Enough is enough, I grab both buckets, throw them over the yards into the big paddock (not the shed paddock) and climb out of the yards. My phone rings, thank goodness, it's still in my bra and not in the mud, its Steph, who I let know what I think of feeding her cattle. I've lost the handle on the big bucket and walk up beyond the yards to the gate back into the paddock with the young cattle. Little red bull won't let me in, the dogs still chasing the other cows. More yelling, push bull out of the way with the bucket and stomp back up to the shed. Get some grain for the weaners (maybe I should have done this first), look up and guess what? It's raining again.... Feed weaners, take hay down to very pregnant heifer. Yell at dog, bull has left me alone, go back to house, nursing BIG blister on the back of my heel, oh yeah, I wasn't wearing socks. I sent my husband a message - NEVER AGAIN.
Till today, and look what I found
but guess what, he had rolled under the fence and was in the next paddock. Mum was nose down in the hay so I opened up the gate and wandered down to check him out. I think its a he, but mum wasn't happy and started to wander down so I had to walk away, nearly to the neighbours boundary till I could climb through the fence as my only other option was the paddock with the big bull in it. So I trundled back to the house, let the chooks out, collected the eggs, left the dogs tied up so they don't chase the newborn, then had a shower.
Maybe I'm learning..
Jane
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