Animal Husbandry

Alongside our creek live some big animals. They graze on the grass, sleep under the trees and drink from its water. For these animals, it's almost an idyllic existence as they have fun together, squabble, and eat. It takes some management to keep it that way. You can't overgraze land, or in the end, you have a desert-- whether you started out with one or not. Livestock need husbandry to keep their lives healthy.

Animals know when they are hungry or thirsty, but they don't know they need salt or certain minerals. They don't know they have to be shorn. They don't know some are being raised for meat so others might live. On our small farm, we try to set it up so that they never know. When their life is over, usually it is instantly; and the herd goes on.

This spring the cattle herd had a good year with no losses in calving, none even that needed help. The sheep flock didn't have so much fortune, and we lost one ewe and her lambs in a tragic birthing which I still don't like thinking about. You can't raise livestock if you can't bear those moments. And you have to think of the big picture-- overall it went well and the babies are growing great, the mothers are contented, the bull is satisfied, and the grass is lush.

At the beginning of lambing season I put in a picture of a ewe and her twins. These are them from last week. Her babies are healthy and for now stay mostly at her side. Lambs run in gangs and sometimes I hear the ewes calling to their young, who are totally ignoring them.

Last week the cows crossed into a pasture they don't usually use. When they wandered back, one cow was having a fit that she could not find her baby. Hers was born long enough ago that I had no concern about its health, but I got tired of listening to that angry bellowing. It was as obnoxious as one of those parents you sometimes hear in grocery stores berating their children.

I saw the calf. He was off eating grass by himself-- typical pre-teen behavior. He ignored her completely, not even giving her so much as a look. Because her loud noise irked me, even if it didn't move him, I pushed him to go toward her. When they grew closer, him stubbornly resisting all the way, she gave him that look, the one only a mother can give, and turned back to the main herd with him following slowly-- very slowly.

There is no way to photograph the lamb gangs as about the time I get a camera, they have stopped their antics, but two days ago I watched six or seven of them running, and one leaped into the air as high as the bodies of the others-- pure joy. Watching and seeing one lamb limping reminded me hooves needed treatment. Sheep are susceptible to hoof rot, and their hooves must be trimmed and treated regularly.

Some (most particularly cowboys) think cows and sheep don't do well together, but actually they get along quite well. The sheep tend to like weeds which the cows could care less about. When a coyote or something threatening comes into the fields, the sheep head for the cows and a few of the cows attack the threat. The only way a coyote can kill a sheep is when the cows are elsewhere and unaware of the danger. This is particularly true when the cows have young calves.

Mostly this blog is about what I see and think; but that might give readers the idea that I am the muscle behind this farm. I am not. I do gather in sheep, chase cows home, keep an eye on the stock, move irrigation pipe, take a gun out to hunt for coyote, help out with the heavier work sometimes; but when a fence needs to be fixed, I would pull it up or block the hole with some baling twine until the muscle got home.

Oh, I might help put up a new fence by putting in clips or stays; but fence fixing as well as livestock wrestling and all the work, that requires someone who can impress the animals with brute strength, is done by the boss. With animals someone has to be the boss or they will be. That someone should be strong enough to hit a bull across the nose and hear him to go whooompf, as he moves on with a nod and a yes, sir, I forgot for a minute. And they do forget.

On a farm, as really with any organization, you can make plans, debate what should be done, but in the end there has to be a boss. Although some ranches are run by a dictatorship, this one is more of a partnership. I say what I think, mention if I see something wrong, suggest it's time to find a shearer for instance, but this farm has a boss, and this is who he is.