Keep the herd on familiar ground that night
The best fireworks preparation for cattle is a night where nothing else about their lives changes. Keep the herd in the field or yard they already know, with the herd-mates they already live with, and postpone any planned move, regrouping or weaning change until the season's big nights are past — an animal's confidence comes from the familiar group in the familiar place, and that confidence is what a sudden barrage tests. If you have a genuine choice of fields, use the one furthest from the regular display sites and the one with the most shelter in it, but do not move a settled herd a long way just to gain a little distance.
Check fences and gates the day before
Cattle at rest lean on nothing; cattle startled together lean on the fence as one animal, and that is when marginal fencing fails. Walk the whole boundary in daylight the day before a big display night: posts pushed firm, wire tension even, gates latched with something that cannot bounce open, and any known weak stretch reinforced or electric fencing checked and live. Fill the troughs while you are out there — a herd that has drunk and settled is calmer than a thirsty one queuing at a slow trough — and clear anything from gateways that a bunching herd could be pushed into.
Feed them into a settled evening
Put out extra hay or feed in the late afternoon so the herd's heads are down and they are chewing as darkness and the first fireworks arrive. Eating is the strongest settling behaviour cattle have: a herd grazing and ruminating through the early bangs tends to treat the rest of the night as weather, while hungry cattle standing about listening are already halfway to restless. Keep calves in with their mothers rather than in a separate creep, keep your own routine unhurried, and then leave them to it — repeated torch visits from a worried owner give the herd something new to watch every half hour.
Walk the herd once the noise dies down
When the displays are finished, walk the herd quietly with a torch: count them, look for the animal standing apart, check for fence damage and for injuries — a leg caught in a scramble, a cow down or one breathing hard and distressed. An animal with a visible injury, one trapped or tangled, or a cow in obvious distress needs the vet that night, not at morning rounds. Then look again at first light regardless, because lameness, a cow off her feed and a calf separated from its mother are all much easier to spot in daylight, and a quiet night can still have cost the herd something.
Extra eyes from your local network
Tell the farms and houses around you that cattle are in the field behind their gardens during fireworks season; country neighbours understand, and a phone call about cows on the lane reaches you in minutes when people know the herd is yours. That web of nearby people looking out for animals is what KinsLe's Circle of Love is built to widen — nearby pet lovers connected in one network — so on the loudest nights of the year, a loose animal is more likely to be spotted, recognised as yours and reported before she finds a main road.