Diana, I'm only too pleased to hear about your rain, and anyone else's for that matter!
Hubby and I have put the whole cow herd through, updated their botulism vaccination, weaned down as much as possible and branded. After it rains, we can just leave them alone. When we mustered and put them all through, just the two of us, they were so beautiful to handle, I remembered why its worth hanging onto them. Had to pick up a twin calf - an AA cow had a little set of snow white heifers - have put her on Tulip. We're topped up with M8U again, but each time may be the last - no assurances are given. More hay from NSW, a beautiful mix of wheaten and oaten. A roadtrain of irrigated rhodes grass is coming to our northern place this week, things are hitting the wall there now. The last rain we had didnt grow anything, it just nuked the very little dry pickings that were there.
There's some bad stuff happening out here with folk who control mate their cows, especially those who had half a season and a bit of grass through the winter. Most of them started calving Dec and didnt have the cows on a feeding regime other than dry lick and of course now they're in a bad way. Some people have huge mobs of calves they've taken off cows, from newborn to 6 weeks old, and trying to feed them milk. They've had to shoot a lot of the mothers. Others are shooting down-cows and cutting the calves out - unless you're really on the ball and can get enough colostrum for the calf, this is a waste of time. Others are just shooting everything as necessary. At least we're not in this situation (yet) and have established relationships with feed suppliers - for the time being anyway. We were pleased with the condition of our cows when we put them through the yards. We brought about half a dozen poor ones home to feed, the rest were fine and varied from fat to very light but strong enough. One cow calved and prolapsed in the yards, not because she was poor, just a honking big calf. I managed to get it sown back in - she's not grateful though, she's determined to kill me. Other people have been kicked off agistments and need to move cattle that are not really moveable. We've lent our 40 foot trailer to folk to move cows who are not capable of walking up to the top deck of a roadtrain.
On a brighter note, our calving heifers on agistment had 50mm on them last week which was a relief. They were critical.
We also had a shower on our western place which had the rain before, and son is taking the rest of his cows home from agistment (which we pay for him) so that's another relief. The small cattle in the feedlot at Dalby are however a major pain - expensive to keep and worth less each week! Does anyone know of any agistment around the Downs? Any news gratefully received!! Other than that, we try to stay well and happy and encourage others to do the same.
