måndag 11 september 2017

feeding calves outside Manapouri

The past ten days I've spent with Lynn Wicks and Hans Kraak and their daughter Hermana outside Manapouri. And all their animals of course. There's four horses, two dogs, two cats, a pig and lots of cows. They buy male calves from dairy farms. Many calves are sent straight to slaughter from the dairy farms. But here they get a chance to grow up. Eventually they'll become meat anyway, but first they get a year or two to run around in the grass, play with each other and just enjoy life. We feed them milk from their 13 cows that are milked each afternoon.

When I got here the weather was clear and we were constantly spoiled by the amazing views. West of us is Fiordland national park, east Takatimu mountains and to the north the Remarkables. In the beginning the tops only had spots and splashes of snow.  After a couple of sunny days it started to rain. And it kept raining. Lynn told me that more than three days without rain is considered a drought in Fiordland. But the rain we got was a little more than normal. We had to put covers in the weakest calves and bottle feed some of them. But eventually the clouds cleared and the mountain tops reappeared covered in snow. 

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