- Young stock out on hardly any spring grass
What joy! There were some pretty excited and rather dangerous jumping and kicking going on on Friday as we released our young stock and beef steers onto grass after five months inside on a diet of hay and straw.
Before they could enjoy a taste of liberty there were two eartags to replace. Persuading several hundred skipping, leaping and kicking kilos of steer to run into a crush was interesting. All tagged, they were off into a field with no public access. We made the mistake once of releasing housed cattle onto land crossed by several footpaths and managed to terrify two dog walkers. So now they go into a quiet field to calm down for a few hours before mixing it with the public.
There is little grass yet – the rabbits have eaten large amounts and we’ve yet to reach real growing temperatures. However, it’s dry and the ground is in most places hard enough to take the pressure of hooves. With a protein supplement, they will be ok until the spring really kicks off.
That leaves just our mums-to-be inside. They will enjoy a peaceful period away from crazy teenagers and other youngsters and will be let out into their own nursery field of good grass in a week or two. First possible calving is later this week; there’s the next thing for us to fret about.