We had a cracker morning to gather on farm to yarn about animal husbandry on Sunday 18th May.
Verena and Todd welcomed us to their Mt Alford property to have a look at their cattle yard set up and shared their wisdom over many topics.
One of the key messages was to build a relationship with your vet – not only to be able to support you when animals need extra care, but also support you to keep you up to date with current best practices for animal health.
A few points overarching all stock animals included:
- quarantining new stock
- a strong immune system will allow stock to handle various disease or tick or worm load
- keep vaccinations up to date
- keep feed above 20cm (ie off the ground) and particularly away from faecal matter
- do a worm count before worming – there is a lot of resistance due to worming programs.
Cattle discussions included choice of breeders (form, temperament, fly resistance); vaccination schedules and tick management. Especially of note was the discussion around needing to give tick fever vaccine after treating a beast, as the treatment doesn’t allow immunity to build.
Cattle handling was summarised brilliantly to remember three things about cattle behaviour – they are curious, hungry and have massive ‘FOMO’ (fear of missing out) – and working with this makes handling them easier.
Tabitha joined Verena to talk about goat husbandry including how to monitor worm count/load and minimise it by allowing goats to graze in longer vegetation, and if possible, waiting until vegetation dries out, but of course, options for worming should the need arise.
Chickens and dairy cows were also discussed, with a demonstration of how to tell if a hen is laying.
We then all enjoyed chatting in the morning sun over morning tea.
Thank you to our members who helped set up and pack up, particularly Anita, Karl, Caroline, Craig and Marc and a huge thank you to Verena and Todd for a great morning.
