BARLEY'S BOVINE BLOG

WELCOME 2 BOVINE CITY!

[bovineblogger]

hi! you can call me barley!

🍎 26 years old, it pronouns, aotearoa/nz based

🍋MAIN BLOG🍋 🌾FAQ🌾

(header by @bat-connoisseur, icon by @dandydingo)

[snailtongue]

[bovinefigureoftheday]

Bovine figure of the day: William Newland Bull

[bovineblogger]

little baaaabeeey

[dogger38]

Good job Misty. Your lil girl is a cutie.

[bovineblogger]

omg i hadnt realised you were from aotearoa :3 hiiii neighbour <- australian

omg hiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii how r u buddy

[bovineblogger]

Hii, i went on a 10 day vacation and thought i'll bring you some cows as a souvenir or something (it was an entire quest, i have some more pics of questionable quality). Here are some guys on the beach

goin for a swim! wahoo!!

[camelidae]

Ah, brahmans, the floppiest of cows~

[llovinghome]

Flower cows

[bovineblogger]

never heard of diversional therapy before so i looked it up and found possibly the worst wikipedia page i've ever encountered? lol

would you mind talking a bit about what it is you do? and is diversional therapy only a thing in australia/aotearoa? or does it exist other places, too, that you know of?

thanks for sharing about pigeons and cowies, regardless :)

oh boy i didnt actually realise diversional therapy was specific to nz/aus! i hope its just called something else in other places lol

basically, i hang out with residents in a retirement home! most of the people i work with have dementia and/or physical disabilities, and my job is to make sure they are all socialising, being creative, getting active, fulfilling their spiritual needs, all that stuff.

every month i come out with a new calendar detailing what activities are going to be on and when, and then i run those activities! (after spending half an hour locating everyone and bringing them to the meeting place lol) every day i start off by gathering everyone in the lounge and we read the morning paper together :) but the rest of the day depends.

like, yesterday it was 9:30am newspaper reading, 10:45am chair yoga, 1:30pm card games and 2:30pm BIIINNGGOOO(i love bingo.) but we do alllll sorts of stuff! we have church services, make art, go for walks in the garden, go out to museums, have happy hour... heaps and heaps of stuff! i ran a jewelry making class not too long ago and it was sooo much fun... (i love being able to make things with the residents that they get to keep and wear around and stuff??? ALSO along that vein we made shrinky dink labels for their walkers which was really cute.)

i really. really really. reaaaaalllyyy love my job. i could talk about it forever. it REALLY tires me out but i dont want to do anything else ever. im so blessed to be able to meet the people ive met and make a difference in their quality of life and stuff. i dont like feeling like im bragging, so its hard to write about, but.. it is genuinely the best feeling in the world when you can help someone feel happy. and stuff. especially when times are tough. and i think im pretty good at it.

anyway, thats my job!

[dogger38]

Oh this one is a cutie.

[oidial]

'i've been letting myself go' because you're fatter? go where? the awesome factory?

[pr0ceeding]

3 week old calf I had the pleasure of feeding 😩🐄💌

[snailtongue]

[farm-paws]

ignoring the "teacup" versions of preexisting breeds, what are the most recently developed breeds of cattle? i know that, ironically, heck cattle are pretty new despite being part of a project to recreate aurochs, but have there been any other 19th or 20th or even 21st century attempts to make a new breed to improve upon a previous or fill some niche?

Square Meaters are probably the youngest breed I know of. Their breed association was registered in 1996 after the breed had been developed. The idea is to have a smaller, tastier Murray Grey (who had only existed for about 70 years at this point lol) specifically for local butcher markets. They’re funny little things

Most of our zebu hybrids aren’t that old either. In Australia there was a huge mistrust about bringing zebu into the country because it was thought they were wild and would go feral (and I mean they did… but they’re also perfect and wonderful). Droughtmaster were developed around 1915, while Braford were developed in 1949, and Australian Brangus in 1950 (American Brangus earlier). Charbray only got here in 1969. My lovely wonderful beloved Santa Gertrudis were only developed in the 1940s (in Texas, USA). My great grandfather judged the first Santa bulls in Australia in the early 1960s.

Prior to the 1900s America and Australia were both pretty wild when it came to agriculture (the age of bushrangers was pretty much done by 1901 when they caught the Kenniff brothers) so once everyone had sort of calmed down and stopped shooting one another they cracked on with what they were all out there to do in the first place. This means most popular beef breeds are pretty young, the exception being European breeds like Angus. They’ve just been up there, minding their own business since like the 16th century.

[bovinefigureoftheday]

Bovine figure of the day: Royal Crown Derby Lily Cow

[bovineblogger]

(video source)