Exfarmer
Member
- Location
- Bury St Edmunds
I was inspired by comments elsewhere to take a trip up north and see the wild cattle in the Park.
A very interesting trip, our guide/ranger was a very knowledgable young man who knew his stuff. not that I agreed with everything, but most was not the usual garbage spoiuted by those who run zoos and wildlife trusts. He was most emphatic in the valuable contributions ruminants make to the soil and local environment.
The Cattle and Park are now owned by an independent trust to the Castle owners. Over the last 20 years the herd has been allowed to expand from 30-50 cattle to now 126 or there about, as they do not get close enough to make a really accurate count. It has been up to approx 140 cattle. The herds is roughly 60% female as the bulls do not live as long as the females due too wasting so much energy fighting and guarding while the cows just get on with eating the grass.
The herd has split naturally into 2 but running in the same 350 acres of open park and woodland alongside a considerable number of deer. They are only ever fed a supplementary hay in extreme weather and average half a conventional small bale a year. Cattle are only ever culled if there is absolutely no prospect of them recovering from ill health or severe injuries from fighting.
We only got to see the one herd but it was very obvious where the other herd was from the bellowing. The cattle seem to take very little notice of us but we were probably at least 200 yards away and upwind.
While the young bulls are forced out of the herd at about 4 years old to live in small groups elsewhere, the herd itself has a several senior bulls among the cows whose main job is to keep other bulls away. It seems from the observation of the rangers their is no overall dominate bull in each herd and the cows choose which one of these senior bulls to mate with. there is a constant tussle from the younger males outside to join these senior bulls, who work together to keep their places. Their work for this is constant.
The calves live most of the time in a form of nursery with possibly one cow watching over until any threat from the bulls present. The cows like domestic cows come in season monthly but the majority seem to be born spring and autumn. Calves stay with their mothers for there first 4-5 weeks before joining the nursery group returning to their mothers to drink. however unusually it seems most cows allow cross suckling. The cows have poorly developed udders and it is difficult to distinguish from maiden heifers.
The herd having not had any introduced ( or not supposed to have as their may have been attempts to improve them in the distant past ) share 95% of their genetics which make the staff very nervous of the dangers of disease which may enter as it is virtually certain they will have little ability too fight it. They are very concerned about TB but as the park is not fully walled ( in fact only a little is contrary to my expectations ) it is virtually impossible to keep out any carriers of the disease. They would not enter any discussions about badgers except to say they believed they may need some control. I do not blame them for this as when we were there, 3 other people were and who knows what sort they were.
They did say that the area there had very low incidence except one neighbour had recently had a breakdown in a newly bought animal.
so hopefully a few pictures
The nursery group
just noticed that is definitely a bull on duty
three bad boys have now tagged along totally innocently grazing of course
This inspires some serious shouting
pawing of the ground and neck rubbing
but today the youngster decide not to try their luck and nothing becomes of it just and the intruders are shewed away very civilly
in there meantime we have to be al little careful as an old bull who has been pushed out some time ago emerges from the wood behind us to make a challenge he retreats when he realises the younger bulls have left and allowed the senior herd bulls to go back to post. These older bulls tend to live in the wooded areas to keep out of trouble but keep an eye out for any chance to get back with the cows
It is very difficult for the rangers to identify the animals as they are so very similar due to the complete inbreeding. They have never been tagged and I think it would be a brave man who tried !
The one big marker in the herd is the colouring , the bulls are grey, but this is not natural and solely due to their habit of throwing dust over them selves and rolling in these dust baths they have created.
This one has just noticed the old bull.
sorry if the pictures are not that good , all taken at quite a range and the light was not the best
