Chris B,
What happened was that some of the people had vaccinated their calves very early in the spring, and apparantly (judging by the fact that they had calves that died from blackleg) their immunity had become lessened by the time the outbreak occurred.
Sidney,
Nobody sues anyone for things like this...just not the Canadian way, I guess. It's just one of the downfalls of sharing grazing with other producers...you sort of pays yer money and takes yer chances.
However, at the time of the blackleg outbreak, there were no regulations in the community pasture constitution that required vaccination. Up till then everyone just assumed that no one would send animals out to grass without doing that. After the disaster, the constitution was ammended, and if someone was to cut corners and not vaccinate, their rights to utilize that grass would be forfeited and their membership terminated. Promptly and permanently. Being that some folks have been on the waiting list for ten years to become members (which only happens when another member retires or their allotment - which is tied into a piece of land that must be owned in BC- is passed on with a land sale) nobody is in a big hurry to be booted out of the pasture.
Another requirement of this grazing association is that 80% of the member's cattle must be overwintered on the property that their allotment is tied into...and that only yearling heifers, cows or pairs (and of course bulls) be turned out onto the range. No grasser steers allowed.
Bulls getting injured or killed are just another "act of God" as far as the rules go. And as to who's bulls are covering who's cows, there's no way of knowing till calving time. The pasture votes in which breeds of bulls may be turned out ( for example, at this time there are no longhorn, belted galloway or highland bulls permitted, as no one has requested their presence) and all bulls must be at least two years old, passed semen testing and be disease free and of course registered within their respective breed association. What most of us do is turn our bulls out with our own herds a month or so before they hit the pasture grass, and then at least we run a better chance of getting calves sired by them. It's not a big deal to get a few later calves sired by the other members bulls, because at this time, everyone runs pretty much Simmie or Char bulls of high quality, so even if your cow is covered by one of them, the resulting calves are good marketable animals.
As to the friendship part of your question, well....although some of us are closer friends than others (and although we might get frustrated with each other over the odd issue every now and then), we all pitch in and work together in our respective units (the pasture is divided into several management units...which is comprised of seperate fenced areas within each unit to enable grazing rotation). So when it's spring, each unit gets together to check and repair fence (those darn elk up here make that a pretty big chore every spring), and when cattle need to be moved to fresh grass, it's an occasion to saddle up and spend a day or two moving them, and of course roundup is also done with members of each unit working together. Overall it's a great system for the money it costs to run a unit (pair) of cattle on good grazing.
As to keeping animal ownership straight, each member uses different coloured ear tags to differentiate the individual herds of cattle...also cattle must be branded before entering the pasture. In order to prevent maverick cattle, no bred cows are allowed on grass. So if you've got late calvers, you calve them out at home - brand, tag, vaccinate and then take those late pairs out to grass. Cows stealing calves is something I haven't seen happening out there, and if a someone's calf becomes and orphan and robs from your cow, it's just seen as one of those things that happens.
At this juncture, one of the biggest difficulties we're having is death loss due to predators...wolves being the worst problem. Over the summer I lost five calves to them, Honey lost two cows and three calves, another member four calves, and so on. However, I found out the other day that we (and I'll put it before the members at our AGM) can request a trapper to specifically thin out the wolf population, due to the large number of deaths that they are caused over the last couple of years.
Hope this answered your questions.
Take care.
