It's been a while since I've written a travel diaries post but I think when you read how much we've been doing you'll realise why. We've been incredibly hectic over the past weeks and it doesn't show much sign of slowing down but that's not really a problem for us. We love being busy and getting stuck in and it makes our Sunday's off a whole lot more enjoyable.
We've been doing a lot of mustering over the past weeks. If you're unsure what mustering is it's essentially herding cattle in the cattle yards so we can draft them, often into bulls, cows and weeners (calves that are ready to be weened from their mums) and then letting them back out into paddocks accordingly.
With mustering comes weening which takes 5-7 days depending on the weeners. It's a lot of time spent in the yards educating them to walk around the yards in the right direction and not get crazy and cranky. It also involves a lot of leading them out of the yards to make sure they walk and not trot or run when they're being mustered in the future. Weening is also the time when any weeners that haven't been ear tagged get all those things done. Once that's done they're let out into a paddock immediately to avoid infection.
We've also been mustering to send cattle off to feed lots and meat works recently so we've been drafting cattle by weight. It's a little more fiddly and time consuming but when you've got two pens of cattle at the end of the day with the right numbers and weights it's a good feeling.
This sort of drafting normally involves loading and trucking as well. Loading is normally done as quickly as possible so the trucky can get on the road quickly so the cattle are in the truck for the least time possible and also so the cattle don't get as stressed. However cattle unfortunately don't understand that so it can be a bit of stressful experience.
All in all though it's really good fun mustering and drafting and trucking and weening. It's also the part that Jack and I enjoy the most as it's nothing like we've done before and probably would never have done otherwise.
In similar but other news, we got the bulls into the yards this week on their own for sperm testing. And yes that involves exactly what you think it does. I won't go into too much detail as I'm not sure how many of you would enjoy the read but you never know I suppose. Essentially the bull has probe up it's bum and the vet holds a funnel under it's penis to catch the sperm to inspect them to ensure they're behaving as they're meant to. Oh and guess who got to hold the probe, yes yours truly. Quickly onwards. The vet also makes sure the bulls are in general good health.
We've been having a really interesting time recently and we'll be back to it in the coming weeks which is good.
I hope you've all been having a good few weeks, let me know what you've been up to and what you're thinking of my recent experiences in the comments.
Until next time,
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