After we've finished, the calves are put back with the cows and we let them go into a 'holding paddock', simply a square km surrounded by barbed wire fencing. This is to stop 'recycles' because we usually trap at least two or three nights. By doing this there are less cattle to draft through each day. My father, my brother and I can usually do three bores in a day. The total of calves branded for a day is usually about 200 or more, depending on what bores we 'handle' at.
Some bores have more cattle than others.
Once we finish one bore, we start trapping at another. Eventually we finish off the 35 odd bores, wait about five months, and start all over again. Every year we truck off cattle, using what we call road-trains, which are lorries designed to carry cattle. The only difference with these is that they're three times longer than any in Scotland. For a good year we might send 5000 cattle.