0:00
So here you can see my friend and pasture partner Jim arriving with his
0:07
cattle trailer. He managed to get 16 head into each load. I said earlier we're
0:16
going to have 43 it's actually 53 that we're going to have but we do have now
0:21
actually and Jim is bringing these cattle from a barn they were born in the
0:27
fall so this is all new to them they've never seen pasture before but they don't
0:36
need to have seen it to enjoy it when they get here and if you look closely in
0:40
the middle I'm just walking out there opening up the gate for him to go in if
0:46
you look at the the top of the screen you can just catch a little bit of some of the cattle that are here already it takes you know three full loads and a
0:55
part load to get that 53 that we're going to have this year leaves are about
1:01
half out at this stage which is usually the time when we when the grass is long
1:07
enough to start pasturing that's one thing you don't want to put the cattle out too soon you want the grass to have a chance to have started growing and
1:16
also the soil to be dry enough so that they're not punching up the pasture and
1:21
killing a lot of plants unnecessarily our pasture has dried out much more
1:27
quickly this year because a couple years ago we had some tile drainage installed
1:32
that's going to make a big difference that is making a big difference already the prized pasture plants are are hanging on longer there they're not
1:41
dying out in the winter because they're submerged in water from all those fall
1:46
rains and then things grow better you can also get the cattle out on the land
1:51
sooner because it dries out more quickly too now you well you may be able
1:58
to see this just going upwards diagonally to the left from the truck
2:04
you can just see a fine white line that's a single ribbon of electric fence
2:10
tape that I will use I will I will extend it all the way to the lilac hedge
2:16
that you see at the bottom in order to divide the pasture but right now that
2:21
first field is open it's five acres in all and here Jim's letting the cattle
2:29
out as I said they've never been in a trailer before so it's all kind of new to them average weight on these is 591 pounds and sometimes it takes them a
2:41
while to figure out how to get out of the trailer as I said it's all new to them now the top of the screen you'll see some of the cattle that are already
2:48
here they they see something's going on and they're coming over to investigate
2:53
whenever you put cattle on pasture like this it takes them a few days to get
2:58
settled down cattle are sensitive creatures really sensitive and wary so you have to earn their trust I'll go out and inspect them with a bucket of grain
3:12
they'll come to associate me with grain so they'll they won't run from me once
3:18
they get to know me an interesting thing here that corner of the first field
3:24
where they're gathering now it's very common for cattle to come off the
3:29
trailer and go to that corner and just kind of sit there and figure out what's
3:33
going on even though from year to year the animals are different they've never
3:38
seen that spot but it just seems to attract them you'll also notice the the
3:43
zigzag cedar rail fence we call that a snake rail fence it's traditional way of
3:48
fencing on Manitoulin most of our cattle pasture is fenced with cedar rails I
3:53
have learned over the years to put a single electric wire on both sides of
3:58
that fence to just as an added deterrent so the cattle won't rub up against the
4:03
fence a couple years ago I had a section that didn't have a wire on it and they
4:07
they rubbed their way right through the fence and 56 had disappeared in the
4:12
forest for two and a half weeks I mean that's that's over a hundred thousand
4:17
dollars worth of cattle so that was an interesting time I searched for them
4:20
diligently never found them never saw them for two and a half weeks although I
4:25
did see signs of them some of them were five six kilometers away some down by
4:30
the lake here on shoreline other ones were by a swamp but thank goodness one
4:36
night they just all showed up again
