When we moved in we only had a handful of cows and a dozen sheep. The place could support more than that, we figured, but deliberately kept numbers low. We were mostly worried about running out of feed over the summer when things dried off. The last thing we wanted was to be caught out with too many mouths to feed, trying to buy hay from somewhere when everyone else was running out.

When the north-east had lots of rain, bucking the trend of drought in the rest of the State, every property in the area suddenly sprouted calves, fattening up on the excess feed.
But we stuck to the plan. There were increases…we had three new calves, and the sheep increased to twenty, but they did well.

But I was wrong about one thing….the dead patch wasn’t the hot dry summer months, it’s winter.

The paddocks look lovely…velvety green soft grass. The sheep are doing well. Most are visibly pregnant, and frisky and fat.

But the cows are hungry!

When the bull was here I had to move them out of the olive orchard. The incessant bellowing from the neighbour’s herd drove us mad, and moving the bull away put a stop to that. With the harvest approaching, we cleaned up the orchards and pruned out all the low branches and the broken spars that interfere with the harvester. I didn’t want the cows back in there until after the harvest, so they couldn’t wreak havoc and undo all our work.

But they lost weight, as they picked their paddock clean. We gave them the front lane, and the laneway down to the river, and still ran out of fresh feed.

The afternoon after the harvest finished we moved them into the bottom orchard, and they made the most of it.

But its not enough. They now have the run of the three olive orchards. Green as it is, there’s nothing in the grass. All that water has plumped it up, but hasn’t put any nutrition it in. Plus its been cold,and rainy, for weeks, so I expect they are burning fuel just keeping the engine warm. The cows started to lose weight, which, given they are all pregnant, is bad.
So we’ve been feeding them twice a day, depleting the hay we cut last year, and churning through bags of pellets. Its taken two weeks, but today I think I’m seeing signs of them fattening up again.

Unfortunately, the gate to the orchard is twenty metres from our bedroom window. Wake-up call for breakfast is very early.