A day of reckoning

5

November 18, 2013 by Hannah

There is a day that creeps up on us here on the farm, and this is market day. The time for selling this years calves, or weanlings, has arrived. It is close to being my least favourite day of the year, and I feel as conflicted about it as when I was a child. It’s a little foolish of me, I know, but when you see something being born, growing up and then have to sell it, it does hurt a little.

The boss gives the babies a final feed before they go.

 

Now I know that in cattle terms our cows have got it fairly easy. As members of the pure bred hereford elite, they have nothing but long days of good feeding and bovine love making to look forward to. They won’t be sent to a meat factory and neither (probably) will their offspring.

This does comfort me a little, but I still miss my favourite Mathilde. She was born at 2am, on a cold frosty February morning, the same day as my birthday. I checked her mother hourly, which was lucky, because Mathilde was such a big calf that her mother was too exhausted after giving birth to lick off the amniotic sack, and Mathilde would have suffocated if someone hadn’t been there to remove it quickly.

But Mathilde is off, hopefully to start a famous bloodline all of her own and I can only, from the bottom of my childish heart wish her well.