Busy Week - bulls, fertiliser

Lots of different things happened this week.  First priority was all the lease bulls were going home.  We started on Monday, bringing them home and weighing them in mobs, and then trucking them out on Tuesday and Wednesday.

The first up the road were a mob of Angus, and into the yard for weighing.  Probably not the best mob to have in the yards for Fridolin to gain experience on as they were a bit toey.

Angus bulls coming up the road

Knowing where to stand with cattle is important and acting calm.  Loading the race with 3-4 bulls at a time, reading their tag, weighing and recording weights, then letting them out.  The Jersey mob we did in the afternoon were a lot quieter and by the time mobs 3 and 4 came in, there was an established routine.

All these bulls trucked home and will be leased out to dairy farmers.

We also started work on a paddock that had a 'pan' caused by pugging over the years.  In order to improve the soil structure we have applied 2 tonnes lime/ha and have aerated the soil.

First the lime went on

Then the tractor aeratorated the paddock using...

aerator, leaving the paddock like ...

this.

On Wednesday we also managed to get the rest of our spring planned fertiliser.  Earlier we had taken soil test (see earlier blog), and as a result of those tests we have worked out what fertiliser we will apply based on need and financial constraints.  The fertiliser included lime at 1.2 t/ha on our other block.  This was flown on by plane.

And Maxi Super at 250 kg/ha on our home finishing country via tractor.

The rest of the spare time in the week was spent attacking some of the thistles in our finishing paddocks and doing some repairs and maintenance on the fencelines.