I carry such tension about this morning. Notwithstanding the parched ground, there is enough to eat and the cattle aren’t very motivated to move. They’ve obliged so far, passing through a sequence of fields until they arrived in this meadow about five days ago, but now I am going to require them to come into the handling area. The trailer will be here at 7.30am; I am entirely dependent on their cooperation.
A long, low whistle and they raise their heads; another and, mercifully, they come. As they file in and make for the nuts I’ve brought, I slip out and quietly close the gate. Sending steers – young male cattle raised for meat – is inescapably at the core of what we do, but it never gets any easier.
