Almost nothing — which surprises people who assume all livestock need sheds.
This is the easy half of the year. Highlands were built on the west coast of Scotland, and a Victorian winter is mild by the standards their coat was designed for. What they need through the wet is mostly a matter of managing ground rather than managing animals.
They do not need a shed. What they appreciate is a windbreak — a stand of trees, a thick hedge, the lee side of a hill. Given a choice between a shed and standing in the rain, a Highland will frequently choose the rain, and then look faintly pleased about it.
The double coat is the reason. The outer layer is long, oily and sheds water; the dense undercoat beneath it stays dry and does the insulating. It is a far more effective system than any shed you could build, and it is why Highlands carry almost no subcutaneous fat compared with other breeds.
What does matter is wind, particularly a wet south-westerly across open country. Cold still air is nothing to them. Cold wet wind with nowhere to get out of it is worth planning for, and planting shelter belts is one of the better long-term investments on any Victorian grazing property.
Not cold. Mud.
Standing in wet ground softens hoof horn and opens the door to scald and foot rot. It also destroys pasture — cattle pugging a wet paddock press the soil into an airless mess, kill the plants and leave you with a poorer sward all the following spring. A single wet fortnight with stock on the wrong paddock can cost you months of growth.
The approach that works is simple and unglamorous:
On 137 acres at Freshwater Creek there is room to keep moving, which is the whole advantage of having land to rotate through. Smaller blocks have to make that sacrifice paddock work harder.
Winter pasture in coastal Victoria is often perfectly good — cool and wet is what this country grows grass in. The trap is that growth slows right down through the coldest weeks even while the paddock still looks green, so the amount of feed on offer is less than the colour suggests.
Where it falls short, supplement with hay. Cattle eat more in cold wet weather, not less, because keeping warm costs energy; a rough industry figure is that maintenance requirements lift meaningfully once animals are wet and wind-chilled. Budget on the generous side rather than the tight side.
Priority goes to the animals who need it most: cows in late pregnancy, first-calf heifers still growing themselves, and anything that has come through a hard season. Dry cows in good condition will coast through a Victorian winter on very little.
Keep a mineral supplement available and talk to your vet about what your district actually needs — requirements vary a good deal between soil types, and lush winter and early-spring pasture carries its own risks that are worth understanding before they arrive.
They will look enormous. That is undercoat, not condition, and it is precisely why you should be feeling for ribs rather than judging by eye.
Condition scoring by hand is the single most useful winter habit. Run a hand firmly along the ribs, over the spine, and across the hip bones and the tail head. You are feeling for cover over bone, not looking at a silhouette. Do it monthly, on the same animals, and you will notice a change long before it is visible.
This matters more with Highlands than with almost any other breed. A slick-coated cow tells you she is dropping condition; a Highland in full winter coat can lose a great deal before anything shows, and by then you are feeding to recover rather than feeding to maintain.
Give them a windbreak, keep them off saturated ground, feed to condition rather than to appearance, and put your hands on them once a month. Winter in coastal Victoria is not a problem for this breed. The ground is.