One thing I want to emphasize before
going any farther, is that instilling the herd instinct happens much
faster when when using the same class of cattle in a herd, and all of
the cattle arrive at the same time. This project is being done with
the cattle coming in over a period of three to four weeks, and
consisting of everything from open yearling heifers, to older dry
cows, to week old pairs and calving cows.
Instilling
the herd instinct in a mixed group of cattle like this is harder (but
not impossible) as the younger open cows move out readily while the
springers will move slower, and cows with young calves have to pick
up their babies and can only move as fast as their calves. Never the
less, The cattle are basically grazing the areas of the pasture they
are being placed into.
As
mentioned in last week's post, the weather threw a kink into the
program when a cold front moved in ahead of a storm and the cattle
drifted into the brush. Tracks showed that the cattle were staying
together until one part of the herd hit a fork in the trail and split
them into two bunches. Somewhere in the middle of the brush, part of
the one group stopped while the other kept going into the next
pasture, as the fence has been down in that area for years. As Monday
was my day for changing pastures anyway, I gathered the draws and
placed those cattle in the southwest corner of the new pasture. The
following video shows how easy it is to gather in the brush and put
the cattle through a gate and still have the cattle paired.
Because
of the way things wound up the first week, and the move, the cattle
are now in three groups, watering in three different places. Despite
this, the cattle are still grazing in the same general area of the
pasture, it just requires me to pick up each group off of their water
point and place them. When they go to water, each group is going back
to the water point they are familiar with. Despite the current stage
in the training process, we are still getting the desired animal
impact from concentrating the cattle as in the picture below.
When
I make the move into the next pasture, the cattle will be placed into
two groups on two different water points. The open cattle, cows in
their first or second trimester, along with older pairs will be place
on one water point, while the young pairs and cows ready to calve
will be placed on a second water point. Because of their different
rates of travel, this will be easy to accomplish as the first group
will travel faster. I will have a person helping me on this move and
one of us will simply bend the second group to one water point and
hold them while the other continues with the other group to the
desired water point. This will allow me to graze two different parts
of the pasture simultaneously while working each with each group to
get them to acting as a herd. The cattle will be in this pasture for
14 days before being mixed together as one herd. The move after the
next pasture will be long, and up a steep grade. At this point the
cattle will probably once again be ran as two herds in the same
pasture. This would not be necessary if all of the cattle were open,
or at approximately the same stage of pregnancy (or had the same age
calves).
The
optimum situation would have been to have all of the cows dry (or
yearlings) and to have received them all at the same time. This would
have shortened the training period from 4 to 5 (or 6) weeks to only
a couple of weeks. However using different classes of cattle,
receiving them over a period of 3 to 4 weeks, and training them in
pastures with brush is allowing me to demonstrate that there are not
many situations you cannot instill the herd instinct into cattle.
