Day 9: Bucky bucks and calm cattle

The Friday started a bit later than the days in the previous week, breakfast was ready as planned at 8:00 a.m. Since the two remaining guests were supposed to start their journey back home today, Jakob and I didn't have any hunting companionship on the schedule. Instead, we went to the farm slaughterhouse with Jens.

There, a bull weighing approximately 800kg and of advanced age was to be slaughtered. First, it was shot, then the workers on site brought it to the designated area with the help of a tractor. In the meantime, we went to the cattle breeding area. There, a part of the herd was to be counted and pregnant animals were to be separated from non-pregnant ones. Each animal was driven through the cattle lane with sticks and loud calls, its ID tag was recorded, checked, and then sorted.

Afterwards, we went back to the slaughterhouse. By now, the workers had skinned the bull. Now the animal had to be cut into pieces and the individual parts weighed. This involved separating the hindquarters from the back and weighing each piece separately. The first realization was that 50kg of meat are indeed quite heavy and not easy to carry. The leftover piece of back (without flank, legs or hindquarters, internal organs, and head) still weighed a hefty 103kg.

After the animal was divided, the pieces stored in the cold storage, and the area cleaned up, we took a lunch break. Quickly eating a snack, resting for a bit, and saying goodbye to the two guests.

After the break, we drove back to the cattle. There, we drove the non-pregnant cows and the bulls out of the enclosures onto the camp a few kilometers away. It's a kind of huge enclosure (220 hectares for 30 cows) where the cattle can roam freely.

On the way to the camp ... 

Then back to the farm. Bonny was already waiting for us there ... he was busy paving a new pathway and we started preparing another section with sledgehammers and leveling the ground (which was already cemented for a pathway) to a uniform height.

At 4:30 p.m., we set off towards Okaue with a trailer. Our mission there: catching sheep and loading them into the trailer so that they can be slaughtered and sold on the farm in the next few days. In practice, this means running like crazy across the pasture and trying to grab the sheep by their hind legs. Then dragging them to the car and loading them onto the trailer. After about half an hour, we had gathered about 20 bucks and headed back to the farm.

However, unloading or loading the sheep turned out to be the biggest challenge. First, we noted the number of each sheep, then we unloaded them individually from the trailer. In theory, they just had to run about 5m between Jakob and me and a fence into the enclosure. But some of the young bucks had a different plan. The first sheep simply jumped over the heap and escaped. Of course, we chased after it ... with the help of two workers who happened to be nearby, we managed to catch the sheep again. For the next sheep, the three of us secured the only escape route. That worked several times, but even in this configuration, two bucks managed to break through our defense wall. However, we caught them again and brought them into the enclosure.

Finally, after about an hour, all the sheep were in the enclosure. That's good because it was getting dark.

At the farm, we had dinner, but this time in the main house ... after all, there were no more guests on the farm until Sunday.