Cattle
With 400 acres to freely roam our small herd of 30 – 50 head of cattle have their pick of lush pasture and are a happy, gentle herd.
Visitors love the fact that they can walk up to our cows and steers and make friends. Daisy was our foundation cow – a beautiful Jersey Ged gave Sophie for their first Christmas together. She used to follow Sophie everywhere – including on her daily 5 km runs! Now sadly gone, her daughter, Honey is Queen Bee while Angel is the designated ‘cuddle cow’ for guests to meet, stroke and pet.
We have a mixed herd of Jersey, Angus, Santa Gertrudis & Murray Grey animals which means we get great meat, easily birthed and quiet in nature.
Because our cows have so much room we rarely need to contain them to one area. They naturally tend to pick the sweetest spots and ‘hang out’ there for a while until the good grass is gone and then they move on to another spot. If we need to move them on, we simply slash the area to mulch the pasture, and they naturally pick another paddock.
Generally they roam to different dams and watering holes during the day and then bed down together in one spot at night.
The cattle are improving pasture with their lovely manure and a small herd treads more lightly on the land. We are thrilled to see dung beetles in almost every cowpat now which shows how healthy the land is becoming under our chemical free custodianship.
Our job is to improve the land after years of neglect, to increase bodiversity, to support native flora and fauna and to stop degradation by working with the natural contours of the land, helping the land to hold water and diminishing run-off into rivers and creeks causing floods etc.
