LIFE ON A FARM

Life on a farm is interesting.

I don’t consider myself as ‘living on a farm’, because my idea of a farm is very different to the reality I live.

However, if you class a ‘farm’ as having a lot of pasture land, water tanks, fire pumps, cows and sheep grazing, chickens, goats and stupid cats, well then I guess I live on a farm.

I think you have to have two hearts for farming; one that’s practical, and one that’s humane.

You see, about five years ago, we bought our first lot of cattle.  10 beautiful cows which we planned to breed from and sell off the babies over the next few years.

So we’ve hired a ‘rent a root’, as I like to call him (a bull for hire), who services our girls, and for the past four years, we have been favoured with good calves.

We’ve sold some of these calves at the livestock market, and others we have sold butchered to people in the local community.

I think this is one area in which you have to have two hearts.  You see, the practical side of you says ‘we’re breeding these beasts for a profit.  The end.’ So you try not to get too attached, which is hard, because the calves are adorable.

Then of course, there is the other part of you that get’s attached because they are adorable, and hilarious to watch running and playing around your paddocks.

With the successes of breeding and selling, comes the sadness of losses and death.  This is an inevitability of life on a farm.

I remember, with the first crop of calves we had, Charlie was moving the mums and babies from the back paddock (53 acres) to the front paddock (47 acres), as he likes to move the livestock around and spell the paddocks to let them regenerate.

We have a huge damn in the back paddock, which is fenced off.  The gate is open so the cows can wander in and have a drink.  Anyway, when Charlie moved the cows, he counted them all to ensure they were all there, with their calves.  However, what he didn’t realise, is one of the cows had dropped their calf through the day, so we had an extra one. 

So, when he counted the cows and calves, according to his calculations, there were all there, and he was totally unaware that a little baby had been left behind in the damn paddock.  Poor little poppit was too young to realise how to get out of the damn paddock, and Charlie found him the next day, dead. 

It was devastating, not only to Charlie, who had poured so much love into these cows, and unnecessarily felt so stupid for making such a simple mistake (he’s only human), but to the cow that had lost her baby.  I can still see the mother standing at the fence of the smaller paddock calling to her calf that was dead.  It was terrible…

And so this spring season sees us welcoming some new additions to Allenbee Fields.  Our Five year old cows are dropping their fourth calves now.  We have two heifers that we bred ourselves that have had their first ones as well.  It’s all a bit exciting.

However, along with the happiness, again comes the sadness.

Last night, Charlie was watching one of the mum’s very closely, as he was sure she wasn’t far of ‘dropping’, as he likes to call it.  So, he went out to check on her this morning, and he was too late.

The little calf was half way out of his mum, and the sack hadn’t broken like it should have, and was still covering its head.  The poor little calf suffocated before it was even half way out.  Charlie had to pull the poor thing out the rest of the way, in the middle of the paddock.   He tried to revive the calf, but it was just too late.  The poor little thing was gone.

This is the reality of living on a farm.  These are the losses you take.  9 months and $1000; gone.

Some people say that they’re just stupid animals with no feelings, so who cares.  Move on.  They clearly haven’t seen a cow mourn its lost baby.

When a cow has a calf at foot, they bond very quickly through smell and sound; particularly through sound.  The mother has a distinctive ‘moo’ that the calf becomes accustomed to.  Just before the birth, the cow will separate herself from the herd.  Then, after the calf is born, they will spend the next few days on their own, the calf getting use to the sound of it’s mother.  Then, they will rejoin the herd.

When we ‘humans’ go near the cows, the mothers consider us a threat (they’re very protective of their calves), and give a deep, gentle warning ‘moo’.  The calves will freeze; stare at us in complete wonder, and then run back to their mother.  It’s gorgeous to watch. 

Very maternal.

However, there is no greater display of maternal love than a cow grieving. 

After Charlie gave up trying to revive this lost calf this morning, when he stood back and ‘let go’, he just watched as the mother stood over her baby, licking it clean, gently mooing and waiting for the calf to respond.

He couldn’t take it, so he left them to it, coming back to the house with the heartbreaking news.

Still, the mother tended to her calf; waiting and hoping.  Gently mooing and encouraging. 

When I left the property at 8.30am (about an hour later) she was still gently licking and cleaning her baby. 

When I came back at 1.00pm, she was sitting quietly beside her baby; waiting.

I went out again, and when I returned at 4.00pm, she was still sitting there.

Charlie and I went for a walk after dinner, about 7.30opm, and there she was.  She stood up as we walked past; watching us, giving that warning moo for her dead baby, telling it to stay close because there was a threat in the area.

‘How long will she be like that, Char?’ I asked, tears streaking my face as I watched her from the fence.

‘Oh…. I don’t know… she may walk away from it tomorrow…’ he replied sadly, and we plodded back to the house, our hearts a little heavier; the faint, deep mooing of the mother carrying in the wind behind us.

In the front paddock, were the last four cows to give birth.  One had done so, two were in waiting, and one had now lost her bub.  In the back paddock, were the eight other cows that had successfully given birth.  There babies were running toward the tent that Jade and her friend Jenyca had set up under the big tree next to the damn for the night. 

They all came to a sudden stop about two meters away from the tend, looking in awe and wonder at this strange thing in front of them.  There were all about two weeks old.  I wondered how long before one of them tried to walk into the tent with the girls…

Two hearts.  Wins and losses.  Joys and sorrows.

That’s life on a farm.

Peace out.