The Oban Cattle Sale.

The Oban Cattle Sale today. I decided to leave the mountain of paperwork in the office and go with Farmer to market as we haven't taken calves to this sale for quite a long time.

The drive to the 10.55 ferry was beautiful.  As we were in good time, we stopped a few times along the way.

We were quite surprised to see cyclists appearing through the mist!

In Craignure we had time for coffee and bacon rolls for breakfast from the Award Winning Arlene's Coffee Shop.  We sat on the sea wall in the sun as the ferry came in.  There were quite a few farmers with livestock trailers in the queue.  The crossing was perfect.

We arrived at the mart and queued up with the rest of them to unload the calves.  We were selling 7 in total.  There were about 900 calves put through the market today, so the car park was overflowing and the pens were all full!  Some calves were allotted passageways as the pens were all taken.

I did wonder if I should try and explain exactly what happens when you sell calves through  the market.  It is a huge amount of work from the market staff to make sure each animal is legally recorded correctly and goes to the right place at the end of the day, with the right paperwork.

Legally the calf needs 2 ear tags.  The ear tags need to match their passport.  Legally they must travel with their passport.

When you arrive at the mart, you are allotted your pens.  Then someone comes along with a pile of stickers, each with a different number and one is glued on each calf's back.  This is easier to read than the ear tags and will identify the animal in the ring, and when it gets to where it is going.  

A record is taken off the ear tag/passport/item numbers so that they all match the identity of the one single animal.  (If the cattle sale has 900 beasts for sale this will be repeated 900 times by the market staff).

From the pen, a note is made of the label number as the animal goes into the ring.  The passports are taken to the office.

The 'lot' whether it is one single animal or several will be weighed before it goes into the pen.  The numbers are written down and given to the auctioneer's assistant.

The calf/calves go in to the ring.  The auctioneer does his bit, and the sale is agreed.

The amount is recorded.  The weight of the animals is recorded.  The buyer is recorded and when the animal leaves the ring it is taken to the buyers pens.  The seller is handed a ticket which records the type of animal sold (i.e. bullocks or heifers), the number of animals in each lot, the buyer, the weight, the price and the pen number it is moved to after the sale.

During each item/lot sale, the auctioneer is not only calling the bids and looking round the ring to see if there are further offers, but he is watching how the animals in the ring are behaving, whether they are acting distressed or being aggressive, and mid bidding he will suddenly say 'Open Up' - open up the gate out of the ring and let that animal go, before anything happens.

There were one or two animals that I watched being sold, were that happened - usually when they were being sold singly.

With green paper ticket in hand, the seller can go to the office and collect their cheque.  This was a little complicated for us today as the printer wasn't working when we went in, so ours is being posted to us!  They ask whether you want some cash from the sale, and the amount you get is recorded in a wee book on the desk, and deducted from your cheque.

We were very pleased with our prices today, and with the weights of the calves we sold.  We cannot weigh them at home so it is only when they go through the ring that you can see how well they have grown.  The heifer Farmer was most pleased with, in the photograph above, weighed 406kg, and she was only born in February.  That is quite a size.   And she fetched a really good price!

What with the Mull Rally traffic and the market traffic we were unable to get onto the 4pm ferry, so had to wait until the 6pm ferry.  This gave us a chance to have a wander in the sun. There were lots of fishing boats tied up, several from Barra (CB - Castlebay) and one registered RX, which I had to look up when we got home - RX is Rye in Sussex. (a long way from home then).

As we were waiting for the ferry back to Mull, the Lismore ferry was loading up and on board were the 3 bullocks we sold  on their way to a new home on the Isle of Lismore.

Driving from Craignure to Salen, the sunset was beautiful but it must have been spectacular at Treshnish!

The cows and the king cups.

A lovely evening on Calgary beach on Friday night for Daughter and myself. Farmer was on his way back from Oban, and I saw him drive past as we enjoyed the evening sun.  He went straight home to move the cows who had been roaming around in small groups on the hill, while he was away (cat away, mice will play sort of thing) - they clearly could smell the grass on the in bye!

The other night, we walked up to the lochan so that Farmer could put some magic blue mastic round the pipe in the repaired dam.  It is slowly, slowly filling up. (Water went over Farmer's wellies!)  There was a mist rising off the water and secrets revealed when the levels were low are gradually being hidden again. You can see the spits of soil between the old peat cuttings.  In a day or so they will have covered over completely.

The cows are in the field between Haunn and the Point.  They have plenty of area to roam, and roughage to find.  Farmer was hoping to stop feeding them, but still the grass is slow to come. Usually by this time the fields would be ankle deep in grass, but not this year.  So tomorrow we are ordering more cattle food from Fort William.  Never before have we needed to buy feed in so late in the spring.

The calves all congregate in a 'nursery'.  There was one cow with them, and the others were spread out across the field.

Slowly the cows came up and had a look at us as well.

Looking past us for signs of the food.

Calling for her calf.

Here he is, at last. Our new bull.  You can see his heart shaped tattoo. Daughter wants to call him Cupid. Farmer refers to him as Hearty.

This cow is no 63. She is our oldest, born before January 1996.

The woodland area to the west of the Black Park is always of interest.  The willow is flowering now, and there are masses of king cup, as well as primrose and clumps of birds foot trefoil and the pale cuckoo flower.

The sea was flat calm this morning.

Wild garlic is beginning to flower.

The elm is looking so pretty.

Puffed ball in Scoma field.

Rum was looking beautiful this morning.

I am having trouble with broodies insisting on sharing a nesting box.

 The new mystery breed - those are certainly not Maran - are getting braver.

The lambs have their first try of the lamb bucket! It took a few days before they latched onto the idea of the milk coming from there and not from Farmer with a bottle.

Plans are afoot to get the in bye lambs in and through the fank.  It is too early to gather the hill, it is too far for the smaller lambs at their age to walk, but the in bye ewes are now in the hill park and Farmer will do them this week.  This is called the Marking.  It is when you know for certain how good or bad a lambing it has been.   We suspect that it will confirm it was not our best this year.

This young rowan was bird-seeded.  (electricity wires overhead!)

At this time of year it is so easy to see the new crop of natural regeneration - the freshness of the leaves on their tiny spindly shapes almost glow.

The islands this morning with some of the calves and the 'nanny' cow in the foreground.

And along Loch na Keal, the bluebells are vividly blue.

It is the Bank Holiday weekend.  There is a different atmosphere here this week, more families with children in the cottages, and a more summery feel suddenly.

Leaves are blowing, calves are sold, wool cheque arrives

Autumn winds are blowing the last leaves from the waving branches of the sycamore trees around the farmhouse, scattering them across the grass and in gathering mounds round sheltered corners. The brood of young chicks are growing up fast and following their mother around the yard. The new brown ewe lambs are happily ensconsed in the field beside Shian and Duill.

Yesterday Farmer sold 10 of this years calves at the annual Mull Cattle Sale. Instead of taking the calves over to Oban market to be sold, the market comes to Mull. Caledonian Marts bring a team of staff over to handle this 'market on the move'.

First they went to Knock Farm, the buyers and the sales team, where they sold a large number of calves, using the farm cattle facilities, after which they drove out to Gribun to the farm there to do the same. Once those two large assignments were dealt with, the team and the buyers came down to Craignure. When we arrived there were quite a few calves already in the pens.

Farmer in the pen, selling 3 Aberdeen Angus calves.

The paint used to put the buyers mark on the calves - each one with a different colour and/or place on the back.

There were only 5 buyers, and sadly for us, it seemed that our lovely black (+ one dun, seen above) Angus calves were not what they had crossed the Sound of Mull for, as we didn't get as good a price as we had hoped for them. Driving home, we struggled to console ourselves with the thought that there is more to being successful than getting a good sale price..but it didn't work. Still on reflection, we have learned something from it - we know that perhaps next year we will do a direct farm to farm sale again, where we agree a price before the calves leave the farm.

There is a joke every year about the size of the wool cheque. Our cheque arrived this week, and this year it is no exception. The fleeces are rolled and bagged, and once the bags are ready, sewn up and labelled, Ewen Stewart come in with their lorry to collect the bags. They take them to the WMB in the south of Scotland somewhere. The amount we are paid for our wool by the Wool Marketing Board barely covers the cost of the shearers, the gatherers and the lunch. Shearing becomes more of a humane treatment for the animals comfort, rather than for the collection of a valued resource. Perhaps someone should start up a wool insulation processing place on the island.

To cheer ourselves up, the homebred heifers look in really good condition, and are so much more mature now. When they were younger, they were inclined to rush about in a gang, but now they are more sedately cow-like. This one will have her first calf in the spring.

The turbine is nearly a year old. It was commissioned on the 13th of October 2009. Today the total generation meter reads 11,371 so it has exceeded its target and we are edging up to the hopeful 12,000 mark. 11 days to go! We have had quotes in for a 3.2kW turbine, and are now waiting for planning permission so that we can install that early next year.