“Does my bum look fat in this?”

Yes, 1108, I’m afraid it does.

How do you know when a cow is fat? It’s not the size of her belly that counts – it is the hollows around her tail and 1108 barely has any. Come to that, she barely has any milk either, which is why she’s got a red stripe painted on her rear. 1108 should be in calf but my suspicion is that she’s not.

We have her and another five cows booked in for pregnancy tests on Tuesday and if she’s in calf, we’ll treat her with a mastitis preventative and send her on holiday to a paddock across the road. If there’s no calf, she will have to be sold.

While many of our cows do not fall pregnant every year, most of them milk well until they are blessed by the bull the next season. In fact, joining cows only every 18 months (“extended lactation“) is now considered a viable strategy for Victorian farmers.

It’s something that we have adopted here for cows that don’t conceive quickly and it works for almost the entire herd.

Fingers crossed, 1108.