Highland cattle feeding time

A sudden change in circumstances:

Winter feeding of cattle and sheep is a fact of life for crofters in this part of the world and entails a daily routine of whatever your feeding regime may be.

My way is 'old fashioned', or so I've been told, as it involves a lot of hands on work with the cattle and sheep, is labour intensive and time consuming. And to be honest, that is a fair assessment.

In the byre each morning I prepare separate buckets of food for our sixteen Highland cattle of all ages. The younger ones get slightly less the older and larger beasts correspondingly more. They also get, in addition to a ration of cattle 'cobs', a mixture of bruised oats and 'shreds' - a by-product of the sugar beet industry. However, mixing the 'bruised', shreds and cobs in the buckets is the easy bit.

Next comes feeding time at the zoo.

When I first came up from London at Christmas 2006, to help Calum with the winter feeding, it was quite a scary experience feeding the Highlanders at the byre of a cold and stormy morning. The horns, you may think, but no, not in my case as a cow actually trod on my foot, jumping to escape a lunge from a larger beast, and it was very painful. So for me it is the feet not the horns.

As the days pass you get used to things and it gets less scary and you acquire the knack and experience kicks in. So now I take five yearlings into the yard, leaving ten larger cattle and a suckling one month old heifer calf outside. The five calves are given their buckets and then I call the two most dominant cows to the yard fence and feed them. I then race to the back door of the byre and quickly put out four buckets and the next four dominant cattle tuck in. This leaves four still to be fed and these hapless souls circle the eaters ineffectually, with pained 'why me' expressions.

I go out of the back door with a large stick in hand, stand guard and wait. With a bit of luck they will finish their food at roughly the same time. But, like humans, some are slow and some are fast eaters. And there lies the need of a big stick.

Morag, the black highlander and dam of the month-old heifer named Suzie, is at the top of the dominance ladder in the Romesdal fold and is a powerful and determined beast. The way it works in cattle society is that the strong eat whatever is going at the expense of the weak, given a chance and the fact that food is rationed to one bucket per animal. A 'state of nature' as they say.

So there we have it, back of the byre, animals munching me with a stick. Morag food finished and on cue rushes from around the corner intent on taking from a weaker beast which would start a domino effect (cause of my sore foot) and me positioned to stop her. So I whirl the stick in her face shouting and snarling, which she does not like, and gently tap her horns and she stops long enough for the four to finish.

I then slide open the back door of the byre, allowing Suzie to come in for her feed, and bring in the empties. I then close the door and wait a few minutes because I can hear Morag snorting around outside looking for more and determined to get her due.

The remaining four buckets are positioned right at the door for speed of distribution. I put a handful of cobs in a pocket, slide open the door, close it behind me and call Morag away with the cobs as a lure. Some of the other high status cows follow her. At a safe distance I scatter the cobs on the ground and hare it back to the byre.

Being intelligent beasts and knowing a full from an empty stomach the remaining four cattle are waiting. The buckets come out as do me again with my stick. Morag snaps the last cobs, turns and starts advancing, which is my cue to curse and holler and wave said stick. And she thinks better of it. Stalemate and compromise. She gets a little bit extra and I get all the cattle reasonably well fed.

And then I have to think about feeding them their hay.

Alternatively, I could save a lot of time and trouble and buy a bigger tractor, dump bales of whatever in some feeding rings, top with some cobs and never have to do battle with Morag again.