Total home - Farm jobs

Today was spent doing mostly farm jobs , of which I have no photos of because I just didn't have a spare hand.

After the absolutely terrible weather yesterday (Monday) today started off a wee bit misty, but cleared up to be gorgeous Winter sunshine from about 8am onwards.  Sunny Winters day means get out on the farm and get jobs done, especially when calving is due to really begin in around 5 days!

*gulp*

Due to the heavy rain we had the cows in a small paddock close to home.  If we had left them out in their original paddock we would have had a large paddock turned into a muddy soup, instead of a small one, and when grass is precious it is better to ruin a small one than a large one.  

Because the cows were close to home, we took the opportunity to sort the springers from the rest of the herd, and to tag the heifers and re-tag the cows who have lost their tags over the past year.  When I say we, TJL does the sorting and tagging, I do the recording and drafting as per instructions.  It's mostly TJL.

The 15 springers, because they are close to calving, are now in a nice flat paddock, which will make things a lot easier should they decide to drop a calf soon.  While the remaining herd is on one of the remaining hill paddocks yet to be grazed.  Fortunately the steepest of the steep hill paddocks were grazed off much earlier.  I really don't like those paddocks, especially when the ground is slippery and/or the cows are heavily pregnant.

And while we had a nice sunny day we also split the 4 bulls up, putting the two 2 year old bulls in with the main herd, and we brought the two 1 year old bulls to hang out in the house paddock.

Tomorrow, provided the weather is as nice as it was today, the herds are due to be brought back in to have a quick drench (poured on down their backs and is zero with-holding, which does not affect their milk) for lice and general wellbeing.  And then all farm jobs should be done, until calving begins on the 20th, and then it's all on.