Advise for a townie.

Happyman42

Wonder could I ask a question in here, what are the possible reasons for cattle roaring all night?
I have a cattle dealer near me and he has started using a yard close by to keep cattle in, for the last 3 nights they have roared all night long, so bad, that my children are being kept awake. Is there neglect on the part of the dealer for this roaring, I suspect they are hungry or thirstly. I need to talk to him about it and would like some info first, so that I am not fobbed off.

pakalasa

Once every year, a farmer will seperate the cows from their young. It usually happens when the young calves are around 8 months or so. It's called 'weaning' and the calves at that stage of their lives are called 'weanlings'. This is very stressful to the cows and they roar or 'bawl' for a few days afterwards. This is probably what you are hearing. Good news is it only lasts for a few nights, unless you dealer friend is constantly 'weaning' different cows, over a long period. In this case you may have a lot of sleepless nights.
Advise is wait a few days and see if things calm down. If not maybe have a 'friendly chat'.

Happyman42

Here's where my lack of knowledge comes in::(
The cattle look fully grown, and he doesn't keep them long, they are constantly loading and offloading them. We live in a town with a meat factory and I'm wondering is this just a holding centre before he sells them to the factory and he's neglecting to feed them, no sign of any hay or meal in the shed.
Again I could be wrong and they are just big calfs.

Markcheese

Could be hungry cattle too... Is the yard near the dealers house....probably not ,

Happyman42

Markcheese wrote: »

Could be hungry cattle too... Is the yard near the dealers house....probably not ,

Lives miles away!

yellow50HX

1st question is he a farmer or a dealer?

if he is a dealer then yes chances are the cattle are just been dropped off and picked up. If they're are getting ready for slaughter then they will be getting fed and watered (last thing you need is cattle losing weight before going to factory).

if there are cattle from different places (picked up from different farms and marts) then they will proably be a bit stressed from being moved around and will be roaring at each other until they settle down. This is normal, if you go to a mart the pens will be full of nosiy cattle. different sights, sounds and smells from what they are used to. From what you are saying it looks like the farm is used as a drop off and pick up point as opposed to a finishing and housing unit. How far are you from the yard?

bob charles

Im constantly bring new cattle here and never have much noise, and the yard is about 50m from my house, if the animals are being weaned, thats a different story as they will be very noisy for a couple of days. once you get used to it maybe you just dont hear the noise. Never had a complaint either and there are 15 houses wihtin 500m of the yards

Happyman42

yellow50HX wrote: »

1st question is he a farmer or a dealer?

if he is a dealer then yes chances are the cattle are just been dropped off and picked up. If they're are getting ready for slaughter then they will be getting fed and watered (last thing you need is cattle losing weight before going to factory).

if there are cattle from different places (picked up from different farms and marts) then they will proably be a bit stressed from being moved around and will be roaring at each other until they settle down. This is normal, if you go to a mart the pens will be full of nosiy cattle. different sights, sounds and smells from what they are used to. From what you are saying it looks like the farm is used as a drop off and pick up point as opposed to a finishing and housing unit. How far are you from the yard?

20-30 metres
He is definately a dealer. They had stopped using it for years, but have recently restarted. I thought it was because of regulations about keeping cattle in built up areas, but obviously I am wrong.
Not much I can do if what you say is correct, there are changing these animals almost daily from what I can see and nights are always the same. prolonged roaring!
Somebdy else keeps a horse there too that keeps kicking the galvanised gate, but at least we have gotten used to that and it will be going out on the land soon. We had the horse keeping time to the mooing last night! :rolleyes:

yellow50HX

there is a certain amount of getting used to it too i suppose as it doesn't seem to bother us too much, that said come sept and oct most years tis loud enough round here at weaning time. There are 5 farms (ourselves included) in a 1 mile radius that have sucklers.

i remember when my brother in law (a townie) 1st stayed at our home place, he woke my sister about 3 in the morning as he could hear a cow roaring and he taught something was up, i wasnt worrying her so she told him to go back to sleep. again the following morning he was concerning as he reckoned she was in pain. To allay his fears my dad took him out to check the cows and yes there was 1 cow roaring away as they walked up the field. She had calved a few days earlier and was looking for her calf which was now weaned. I suppose we just got used to it.

although having said that we would actually notice if the cattle were making noise in an unusual manner. my dad got up during the winter when he hear the cows roaring, found that the hinges on a gate had broken and the cattle had got out into the penning yard. I was at the in-laws a few years ago and woke up to hear the cows making a lot of noise which i taught was unusual, found that a couple of them had managed to get out into the feeding passage and were running up and down there with the others cheering them on, (great sport was being had by all).

bbam

Happyman42 wrote: »

Wonder could I ask a question in here, what are the possible reasons for cattle roaring all night?
I have a cattle dealer near me and he has started using a yard close by to keep cattle in, for the last 3 nights they have roared all night long, so bad, that my children are being kept awake. Is there neglect on the part of the dealer for this roaring, I suspect they are hungry or thirstly. I need to talk to him about it and would like some info first, so that I am not fobbed off.

Fair play to you for educating yourself before having a confrontation over something unavoidable.. If more "townies" did that there would be less tension in some areas..

One thing we find good for the kids is a cheap CD player, stick it on repeat with their favourite CD and since its more local to them it will help aliviate the noise from the cattle, it also gives them something to focus on if the wake rather than the cattle being the only noise to be heard.

Give it time.. How people in the City sleep with random alarms and emergency vehicles at night is byond me... but they are used to it I suppose!!

1chippy

It may be a case of silence of the lambs going on.
what meat factory is it and how many cattle is he keeping to the one horse. I dont think dealers should be keeping horses right now.