I bumped into a neighbour the other day, and he regaled me with a story about bringing a batch of bullocks home to pick out a few for killing.

It seems he had put all necessary precautions in place. A small squad of experienced helpers strategically positioned in gaps, laneways and road ends. Also, he chose to do it first thing on a Sunday morning, when highways and byways were unusually quiet.

He then enticed the cattle onto the road with a little trail of meal, before ushering them quietly in the general direction of the home farm. Everything was running as sweet as a nut, and just as he began to feel a bit relaxed about the whole expedition, a woman brought her bawling youngster down the garden to the roadside to witness this rural scene.

Ten seconds later, 20 fat steers that had smashed over a neighbour’s hedge, were high-tailing it across a few grass fields, and the prospect of gathering them safely into the yard seemed like a forlorn dream.

He got them rounded up and back onto the road, but it was hours later, and involved just himself and an awful lot of patience.

As he relayed this tale of anxiety and torture, I had nothing but sympathy for his plight. Like me, he is pretty much a one-man band, and this sort of situation is being played out on farms all over the country.

The obvious response of ‘‘get a few neighbours to help’’ comes from people who know nothing about handling suckler-bred livestock that are used to seeing just one person every day of the year.

I often wonder to what extent ease of handling made our large-scale finishers switch to a full-time housing situation? No more worries about that lone lunatic beast that refuses to follow the rest onto a laneway or road. No more sleepless nights before a TB test, remembering certain batches that were impossible to corral into those rickety pens on the rented land. And, most importantly, some sort of peace of mind when the phone rings, knowing that it can’t be someone to say those dreaded words: “Your cattle are on the main road.”

Risk

It is impossible to cover every eventuality, but what we can do is minimise the amount of risk associated with handling beef-bred cattle and a lack of labour on farms. In my case, the obvious beginning was to improve the basic fence structure.

The second most important point is to know your stock. For me, this means that any temperamental animals are kept on the home farm, where I can tempt them into an old lane, which leads to a reasonably secure yard. In addition, there is a safety net of fields on each side of the lane.

The occasional bucket of meal, irrespective of grass quality, is a vital tool in the battle between man and beast. In fact, if someone told me that they fed cattle all year round purely to ease handling of stock, I would agree with their choice. Forget about benchmarking, margin over feed, or any other discouragements to feeding cattle at grass; having workable stock has to be the most important aim.

I try to work a ‘‘reward’’ system, whereby each time the cattle are brought into the yard for veterinary treatment I give them some meal, and also a shift into a fresh field of grass. This helps to break the association between coming into a yard, and something unpleasant occurring.

And sticks are completely forbidden; I can honestly say that cattle do not feel anything other than my hand on their backs from the moment they arrive here until they leave again. This has nothing to do with animal welfare, it is just plain commonsense. If you had a length of alkathene along your back every time you visited the dentist, wouldn’t you be a bit jumpy too?

These few pointers will not remove all of the problems associated with handling lively cattle, but they may reduce the chances of a bovine disaster. Of course, the unfortunate truth is that even if all my best-laid plans result in cattle that are easy to manage and handle, I’ve only won an individual battle. No sooner are last year’s tranquil animals away for slaughter, until I have to start the war all over again.