No 47. Cattle tied by the neck.

A long time ago, but yesterday too. Rain On My Window (Tears in My Eyes) will be an ongoing tale of my early memories of life shared by my younger brother David on Whitehall Farm in Stronsay, Orkney, of our childhood on a working farm in the 1930s before we lost our innocence.


No 48. CATTLE TIED BY THE NECK.

When I wrote of our father building the “Madhoos” at Airy as the first loose cattle housing in Stronsay, and as I come in from a steading of cattle housed on slatted floors and straw-bedded courts at Isauld, I think back to early days in Whitehall and how the livestock were winter housed. Everything, but everything, was tied by the neck, both horses and cattle. Even Old Spot the farm dog was on his chain for the night, though he was trustworthy enough. I do not remember the numbers of cattle each byre held, nor how many cows, nor how many feeders. But I do remember the byres and the steading, the various connecting doors, and the dung middens which were works of art, not a heap of s*** as so many today would call it. Sides well dressed, tidy and straight, corners squared off, all time consuming work but therer was no T.V. then. The midden plank was placed just so though it had to be frequently moved on or over as more barrow loads came out and the midden grew large over the winter. Usually a long wide midden plank or two as a high road, often found on the beach off some wreck, and some smaller shorter planks leading off to a side, shifted on as need be, with a turn-corner to be very carefully negotiated with the dung barrow.
But the cattle is what we are looking at. At the upper end of the steading was the sookers [sucklers] byre, the cows and their calves, the big Aberdeen Angus bull in a single large stall at the end next the chaff house and the barn. I will at this space of time take a wild guess and say we had 24 cows in that byre and a few milkers in the feeders byre. They were all tied by the neck two to a stall by a chain we called a neck chain but in Caithness called by the Gaelic name of “ask”. The divisions between each pair we called beel stones but again the Caithness name is “Hallans”. A solid four-inch thick flagstone perhaps five feet high and about six feet long from the head wall, well set into the floor, about 18 inches deep at a guess, though I took some out of one byre at Isauld and put them in another so I should know. Anyway they were solidly fixed into the ground. The floor itself was also of flagstones, possibly imported from Caithness. I remember Jeemie Moad at Airy making on the farm some beel stones for a new byre out of concrete and re-inforcing steel, a common enough practice later in both my Counties. In front of the cows was a feed stall, a 9 inch high stone kerb about 18inches out from the wall and always with a stone centre divider. It helped the cows to get a good bite at a neep (turnip) and to give each a fair share with her partner. Their neck chain was just so long that a cow could not reach in front of her partner to steal a tit-bit, though some would try, tongue reaching out to lick a leaf nearer.
The ask was on a ring on a near verticle slider to allow room to move up and down for a cow to reach the heck or rack above their heads in which were the straw windlins, or perhaps some loose hay if lucky. Heck is an old Norwegian word still used there, so “The Vikings were here”, both in Orkney and in Caithness. Old Norse also had “Halla” for flagstone, still do. On the chain was a swivel and one of the cattleman’s duties was to see that it was well oiled, otherwise it could lock and inconvenience the cow with a twisted ask. . Three large rings spaced along the chain allowed adjustment for a larger or smaller neck, or even a knot could be tied on the chain for smaller cattle. Very important too was for the cattleman to check regularly that the chain was not too tight and cutting into the top of the neck of a beast. I must admit I have seen it, and it could be a really stinking mess if undetected for too long. Cattle did grow during the winter and a chain that fitted tight at tying up time would usually have to be adjusted later.
Behind the cow was a small step downwards into the oddle, in Caithness the strand. This helped to keep the cows all the drier by draining away liquid. And dung. That step varied wildly in height according to what or whose byre you were in. Along the oddle a practiced cattleman could push amazing heaps of dung towards the door with a byre scraper
Behind the cows on the opposite wall the calves were tied, each with a neck rope, usually directly behind their mother so they could speak to each other. Again the neck-loop in the rope had to be just so, a knot in the rope preventing it becoming a hanging noose. The calves were suckled either two or three times a day, the rope tucked in around the neck to keep it out of the muck on the floor, but that could be quite a struggle with a growing calf anxious to get to mamma. Sometimes they won, their rope trailing in the dirt.
Calves were usually born at Whitehall in early Spring from February onwards, though there would be an occasional cow that broke the rules and had an autumn calf. A long winter of suckling lay ahead of it. Later at Greenland Mains father had enough room in some byres to have a cow with her calf tied beside her in the stall, allowing the cow to move diagonally across and the calf to suckle without being loosened. Quite handy but needed spare stalls.

The next byres in order were the calfie byres, three of them at the top of the square and lying across the building, three stalls each side of a central passage. They had small stalls and each byre held twelve weaned calves, about six months old when they came in at Autumn time. Getting them tied in their stalls was a pantomime, a rope with a loop, a lasso, and try to throw it over the calf’s head. Father was pretty good at it, but that skill was not universal. Then the rope through the slider, a couple of men on the other end, and the calf was pulled into place, the chain fastened around it’s neck, and the calf was there for the winter. Hallans were smaller, hecks were lower, stalls were narrower, fit for purpose. There were no water bowls at all, any water, if needed, had to be carried in buckets, usually to cows that were milking for the house and needed more liquid. But that tremendous crop called turnips [neeps] filled all water requirements, being a succulent with a water content of nearly 90%, swede turnips being solider and more nutritious than yellows, but later maturing and keeping well for Spring use. A full basket each cattle beast in two split feeds morning and afternoon provided all the water needed, baskets filled according to the size of cattle of course. Yellows for the cows and younger cattle to be grazed next summer, swedes usually for the feeders or the milking cows. And big feeders would get more than a basket, indeed fed to appetite by very knowledgable cattlemen.
The yearling byre was on the low side of the Square, the Long Loft above it so it was the warmest byre, larger stalls than the calfies but otherwise the same pattern. Below it was the feeders byre with the largest stalls, the ones next the farm house for the milking cows. A corn kist half way along, partitioned in two, a larger side for bruised oats, a smaller side for precious linseed oilcake. It had a lock with a fastening pin in case any beast got inadvertently loose in the night, opened the lid and killed itself by gorging. Beside the kist the wooden feed boxes were stacked, oblong ones and round ones. The oblong ones were better for carrying than the round, the cattleman taking two in each hand with his fingers gripping two boxes over the top, and one in each oxter, the armpit for those among us who do not know that old word. Six in all at a time. Needed a strong grip. I could only manage four. .
It was a long winter for the cattle all tied by the neck.