Just moved onto acres with a few cattle: the first 90 days

Do the water sum

A grown beast drinks 40 to 70 litres a day and more in heat; three of them can empty a small trough between your morning check and your afternoon one. Watch the trough refill and time it. If the refill is slower than the drinking on a hot day, that's the first job.

Walk the fence with a pair of pliers

Cattle push where a fence is slack and go through where a strainer post has moved. Tighten what's loose, and note every post that rocks when leaned on.

You need a yard, even for two

The day a vet needs to look at a foot or an eye, or a tick check needs doing, you'll need to hold an animal still. A small set of portable panels and a race is enough. Without it, every job becomes a rodeo, and the vet will say so.

Find the plants that kill cattle

In Queensland and northern New South Wales, mother-of-millions flowers in winter and kills cattle that eat the flower heads; it's a garden escape and it's everywhere along fence lines. Lantana, bracken and several others are on the state list linked below. A slow lap now, with a camera, is the whole task.

In Australia: PIC and NLIS before anything moves

You need a Property Identification Code for the place, and cattle carry an electronic NLIS tag that's recorded against it when they move on or off. Your state department of agriculture runs both; if the cattle came with the place, check the transfer was done. It's a fine, not a formality, if it wasn't.

Ring a cattle vet and ask what the district does

Vaccinations, tick control and what to watch for are local. In cattle tick country, tick fever is the reason a vet visit before summer matters. Ask about it now.

Start the record

For each animal: tag number, when it was last treated for anything and with what, and any withholding period on that product. Withholding periods matter if you ever sell or eat one, and nobody remembers them a month later.

Rest the grass

Cattle on a small place will eat a paddock down to nothing if given the chance, and the grass won't come back in a dry spell. Two paddocks alternated, or a strip fenced off, is the difference between feeding hay in August and not.

Lush green after rain: bloat

A flush of clover or lucerne after rain can bloat cattle within an hour of turning them onto it. A tight, swollen left side is an emergency. Ask the vet how to introduce them to new pasture in your district.

Flies, ticks and the summer check

Buffalo fly and ticks arrive with the heat. A weekly look at the neck, brisket and around the tail head, and a vet's advice on what's approved and when, is the summer routine.

Fire danger days

On a high fire danger day, know which paddock is the safest — short grass, a dam, a way out — and know how you'd move them there. The rating for your district is on the page linked below.

If a cow is in calf

Ask the vet what normal calving looks like, and what isn't. A cow straining for an hour with no progress, or with a calf's feet showing the wrong way, is a vet-now call, and it's much easier to know that in advance.