Cattle Drive

Usually after calving is almost all wrapped up we trailer the cows and their calves down to the sand where they can graze on nice lush green pasture!!  Well, this year Jared didn't want to trailer them down because we always have to borrow a truck and trailer from my brother in law, and then there is the cost of fuel and the chance of calves being hurt from being crammed in the trailer with their big mommas!!  So, after calling our neighbor about what he thought of the cows walking down and if  there was a possibility of damaging some crops on the way, we got the okay to go for it, he just wanted us to try and keep them out of the pea crop.  I think it actually worked out perfectly!! The cows took a sniff of the peas and decided nope, no way!! The barley on the other hand was too tempting and they did eat a little bit of it as they walked past!!  But there was so much tall, green grass in the ditches that this made them pretty happy!! I drove the tractor with a bale on it and for the most part they did follow me!! Every so often I would call out to them saying, "Come on cows, lets go...!"  I'm not sure if this worked or if it was just my imagination!!  But I do remember my step dad calling out "Come Boss" when he wanted the cows to move and they always started moving!! I tell myself what I did helped!! We took them straight down the road for 1 1/2 miles and then we had to turn, Myrna drove her car up ahead and stopped on the road blocking the area we didn't want them to go and it was such a huge help!! We took them another mile and then had to turn again and only about a 1/4 of a mile and into the new pasture.  Jared was the most worried about them going into the pasture since they had never been through that particular gate.  I pulled the tractor through and got out and stood on the road with Emry, Maryssa and Armin to prevent them from going past the gate and surprisingly our little crew was able to steer them in the right direction right through the gate.  Thinking about it after I am quite shocked that they didn't go through us, the kids and I couldn't have done much if they had tried!!!

I knew my older sister Avi, and her daughter Maryssa were going to be at my moms for the weekend so I invited them over to help us walk the cows down!  Maryssa rode the quad with Emry and Avi drove her SUV behind.  They were actually a huge help!  We had one calf born only three days before and was actually quite weak, he was taking such a long time walking that Avi offered to have him ride in the back of her car!!  She was so excited to help out she said she didn't even care if he peed or pooped in the car!!!  Thankfully, though, he didn't!!  Though the next day he did die, I think he was too weak right from the start and didn't get the initial drink from his mom that he needed to survive.  Other than that our cattle drive was a success!! A couple of calves had to be rounded up after and trailered down but that went good!!  Jared roped the first one with no problems the second one took a little more effort!!

Sunday after Jared checked the cows he noticed the little calf that was weak was not doing well at all but he couldn't do anything about it right then because he had church meetings to go to.  So after Sacrament Meeting Jared and I headed home to see if we could save him if he hadn't already died.  Well, he was dead so we decided we needed to get his momma out and back home where hopefully we could pair our last little bottle fed guy with her.  It took a bit for us to get her out of the herd and onto the trailer, the alfalfa and grass were really irritating my allergies.  I am sure I sneezed 150 times in the span of 5 minutes.  It was brutal!! We finally were able to get her loaded and home.  We didn't have another halter to put on her to tie her up so we had to wait to pair her with the calf until Monday.

Monday came and Jared was able to get a halter.  We got her in the squeeze, haltered and hobbled her back legs and Jared started milking her to see how her milk was.  For the most part it was good, limited supply but good, except one teat.  One was quite large and the milk coming out of it was chunky...since there was no blood it was probably okay but her teats were rough and cracked, not nice looking at all.  We put the calf on and he seemed to know what to do but wasn't getting a whole lot of milk so he would come off.  Since Jared was satisfied he could drink he let the cow out of the squeeze and held her by the rope to lead her to the fence where she was to be tied up!  Well, she wasn't too fond of being haltered or hobbled so she kinda went crazy!!  Jared did get her to the fence but only to have her turn on him and chase him over the fence.  Even after he was over the fence she still wanted to get him.  We decided to let her calm down and go in for some supper. Once she was somewhat calm and Dave was able to help Jared they were able to lure her to the fence with one of the other cows tied up there.  But her milk still wasn't coming out great and the little calf was getting hungrier and hungrier!!  They decided he will remain a bottle fed calf and she will either go back with the main herd or become many tasty dinners!!! 

So, as successful as our cattle drive was there is always a slight damper to our success.  Cows are so unpredictable...

Since Sunday was my nieces 12th birthday, Avi and I planned an impromptu surprise birthday party for her to take place after our little cattle drive!!  She was thoroughly surprised and the kids had fun celebrating with her!! There were balloons, silly string wars and cake...what more could you ask for!!