Living with Livestock - an acquired taste!

G'Day all and welcome :-)

I love my livestock. It's addictive even. I find it very hard to say no to a pair of dark brown eyes, cute cloven hooves, or a set of soft and glossy feathers. There's just something in me that is inherently drawn to keeping animals. So much so that I'm forbidden to go to a cattle auction yard unaccompanied - since I already have a menagerie at home - and even then when properly escorted I manage to sneak one or two in the car.

I've been guilty of telling the quick lie "we've had that one for ages" or possibly "oh that one, you're just noticing her because she's moulted" and of course the famous "but honey, it was a giveaway". 

     

I've been known to go up the mountain for a bobby bull calf to put on my cow, and come home with a pair of heifers instead (but they were so cheap!) and I'm certainly known to be a sucker for visiting the sale pens at the country markets, the cash just forces it's way out of my wallet and into my hand, I swear!

I'm the person who gets calls from friends whenever they have an animal related question, or better yet, when they've come across a stray. Need milk or colostrum for a suddenly orphaned calf? I'm your girl. Need bags of CMPK because it's 2am and your cow has milk fever but the vet is going to cost you your first born? Yep that's me too. 

Somehow got possession of a stray sheep that wandered onto your property from god-only-knows-where and have no idea what to do with it? Morgan will know, she's got livestock, right?

And that's the thing. At some stage during my foray into farming, I went from having "a couple of chooks and a dog" to OWNING LIVESTOCK.

It used to be that when someone said the words "owns cattle" I imagine a weathered man in faded blue jeans, well worn boots and a wide brimmed Akubra. Stockwhip curled at the ready, perhaps leaning against a post & rail cattle chute, with a fire pit nearby - branding irons aglow upon hot coals.

I certainly wouldn't have conjured up an image of myself in my present state. A 30 years old, mother-of-one, in knee high gumboots (or barefoot, often as not) and a long braid falling down my back. Have to say I do kinda rock the jeans & Akubra look - though I don't wear my hat when I'm milking, it would just annoy Annabelle.

Owning livestock, (and at the moment I've got two cows, one beefy heifer calf, a horse, about 50 chickens, 4 turkeys, two great danes and a 3yo toddler girl) means a great deal of chores. Lots of work that the "normal" suburban mum doesn't have to fit into her day. 

It makes for long days when you're milking at 5am, before you get ready for work (& kindy) as well as collecting eggs in the afternoon, alongside the regular stuff like doing the laundry. 

I have different shoes for home and work - because anything worn in my front yard is likely to have some kind of manure embedded in the sole. Not to mention making sure I don't run late and have to throw out hay while I'm in my work clothes, nothing worse than the telltale itch of lucerne twigs in your shirt!

It's worth the work for someone like me though. When you're drawn to keep animals you don't notice the odour of a freshly fallen cowpie. You simply get used to collecting it in the barrow from the places likely to be frequented by visitors, and putting it in the veg patch, ready for the next bed to be dug over. The crow of a cockerel in the dark hours of the morning doesn't wake me anymore - but the dull thumping of hooves at 3am, signifying something chasing the stock in the paddock will.

And I don't mind being the "farmer" friend. People ask me about things to do with the cows, or the chooks, or the garden - and I'm all too happy to share what I know. 

It's a delight to be able to provide someone else with eggs from my beautiful free range, happy chickens, because unlike them, I can own livestock. Or to be able to go to a barbeque and take some prime cuts of meat from the last beast we butchered, home grown, happy beef - because I can own livestock. 

It's not for everyone, but it sure is for me. 

M