Mirabelles and cows

Just an excuse for a cute picture really.
There is a Mirabelle plum tree in the middle of the field that Bear and Venus are in at the moment. They are just ripening and I made some nice jam. We have another tree that has more yellow fruit than this one.

Haïnoa and Islay are sold and gone!

We advertised them on leboncoin (French site a bit like ebay but you collect the things you buy), and really quickly someone responded. We made an appointment for him to come and see them - and were a little surprised when he turned up with a trailer!
He saw them, loved them and bought them...
We had a bit of fun getting Haïnoa in to the trailer, I was intending to spend some time habituating them to going in and out of our trailer before we had to load them for someone else. After minor setback where Haïnoa ploughed the poor guy through the cow poo on a rope then broke free, I recaptured her and we got her in the trailer quite easily (we did have to cut a bit of fence to pop her out in a convenient place, but all good).
She wasn’t very calm on arriving at her new home apparently and charged the guy, but sure she will settle down quickly!

Little bit sad to see them go but a relief also that it went relatively smoothly and that all the remaining animals will now have plenty of grass.

Fabien very bravely in the van with them

... and they are off!

Their new home is near Biarritz, we may visit one day - it is near a mini railway I would like to go on. The new owner is very friendly and nice, he has a gardening business and is planning on expanding in to conservation grazing with the highlands, I think he was intending to use castrated males for that - there are various people who do it in the center of France apparently.

We still have Bear (Islay's calf), we cannot catch him at the moment but are working on that. We will either sell or eat him depending whether we find a buyer or not.

Cow blood tests - DONE

I mentioned a little while ago we needed blood tests from the cows (and also a TB test this year).
It is now all done and we are just waiting for the paperwork.
The vet said they were very calm and well behaved - which they were. Although we find the highlands difficult if we don't work with them enough, in the grand scheme of cow behaviour I think they are pretty good.
It is a relief to have it done as we are a bit late with it. We only discovered last minute that it was meant to be done by the end of April. Fortunately they gave us an extension. It makes it hard to sell or abattoir animals if you don't have the tests in place.

Cow wrangling

The clicker training on the cow is going well, but we decided we needed some basic cow handling equipment to make some things safer for us (and the vet).
More ropes needed to hold them to the trees.

Clicker training coos

All the cows have to get a blood test done every year to comply with French regulations. The Jerseys are very good and easy, but the highlands, particularly Hainoa, are a little more difficult because she isn't keen on strangers (ie everyone but Doug and me).
I have started clicker training her to improve getting a head collar on. It has worked well and we have now progressed on to getting her used to lots of movement and activity around her. She is very good compared to many cows the vet sees apparently, but still we need her to be better.

This is the clicker in my hand. The idea is that you teach the animal that when you click they get a treat. That then allows you to pinpoint for them exactly the behaviour you want. So when she investigated and touched the rope with her nose I clicked and she got a treat until she learns to do that, then I progressed to putting her nose in to a loop etc until the head collar was on. You can google it...

As you can imagine, getting the rope over those horns is tricky without some cooperation from the cow.

'Where is my treat??'

Here it is - I sometimes think she is going to eat my whole hand in her enthusiasm

Peek-a-boo

Islay has had some sessions too, but she is a much calmer personality and not so suspicious of everything - though still not keen on vets violating her rear end.

COLD snap

We are having quite a cold snap with it getting down to -6 overnight and being forecast to get as low as -9 tonight. There is snow as well so the animals are not totally thrilled.

You can see how well insulated they are by the snow sitting on their backs

Vet visit for Owen and Daisy

Just their annual vaccination, but it is good because the vet checks them out as well. Heartbeat, teeth and for Owen he checked his joints too because we are a bit worried about an intermittent pain. Vet says old abscess that is slowly growing out. Joints seem good

Daisy is in tip top health apparently :)

The vet also took a blood sample from the Highland cows which was a NIGHTMARE because they didn't want to be caught and don't like strangers.

Cute pictures of cows

Myrtle

Myrtle eating Bluebell's hay, dangerous game for anyone but her daughter!

Bear is looking a bit glaikit. His mum thinks bowl cuts are cool obviously.

Hainoa is back

Hainoa has been off visiting the bull for about 2 months. We went to get her back as they said she has stopped coming in to heat. Getting her in to the trailer can be tricky as she isn't used to it, but fortunately the coo man's son is a cow whisperer and was able to catch her easily and get her in. Their giant cow shed with really high solid fencing makes it much easier too.

This is our horse trailer. We fit a different barrier in it. It is much easier with one highland than the pair of them.

Their hanger - Hainoa is hiding in there somewhere

Back in our field saying hello to Islay

All having some nice hay

Glad to be home.

Lismore from the abattoir

A cow can be fitted in to a surprisingly small number of boxes - though they seem bigger when trying to cram then into a freezer.

This is a whole cow!

Sorting through all the bits so they are organised and we can find what we want.

First sample

Yummy in a sandwich - just as tasty as Bif we decided.

Fencing the top field

We have only had sheep in the top field all the time we have been here. We have wanted to fence it for the cows and horses but never found time. 

It is better for the land (in terms of keeping it as grass rather than weed and scrub) to have a variety of animals over it as they eat different things.

We moved the sheep out while Aidan was here and with both of us around, now seemed like the perfect time to do it. Also pushing us to get it done was the cows not really having quite enough grassland as the herd has grown rather. Lismore is going to the abattoir soon and we will sell Bluebell, but even so more grass will be useful.

The area in green shows the area we just fenced. The red is the total land. There is a tiny other patch somewhere off the picture at the middle of the top. We have never actually identified it.

Was lovely weather

Across the top of our land there is a green strip, this is because EDF come through every other year and cut under the electricity wires. This pylon is on our land.
This bit pictured is in the new fenced area

There is some of the strip EDF clear outside the fenced area because an acacia grove grows there and we need to wait until next summer when they have been through again before we can get through it. The acacias have EVIL thorns.

At some point EDF better fix up their concrete as it is crumbling away. It would be bad if the pylon fell over!

 We took out the sheep fencing that was up there. I have mentioned before that this fencing is both genius and EVIL. It likes to get all tangled up - but does keep the sheep in whereas many other fences do not.

It was quite grown in in places, though it has been much worse as Doug had been round it all in the spring.

The dog was VERY helpful

The new area is about half grass and half in the chestnut forest. We hope the cows will do a good job clearing the bramble and saplings that have been growing up in there for years (the previous owner used to pass cows through the woods every year and keep all the undergrowth down)

Various bits of fallen tree had to be chopped up to clear the way. All good wood for the fire.

 Stopped again to admire the view

Much strimming went on. Doug did it with his uber strimmer that I can hardly lift. I have a lighter one for work in the garden etc. Doug has a metal blade on here which goes through reasonably big saplings, the smaller strimmer doesn't take one of these so struggles on stuff like this.

Driving the 2 wheel tractor and trailer along with equipment.

Dog resting after running around after wild boar

 We had to have a bit of a chat with the pump to get water up to the new field. It was doing a max of about 2.7 bar and the water couldn't get up high enough.

We finally worked out we need to twiddle these springs to adjust.

Venus didn't want to move fields but we eventually persuaded her.

Yay everyone is happy with lots of grass and some chestnuts too.