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Wednesday, April 25, 2012

cattle on the loose

So the Sunday before Easter we were getting ready for church when Ben got a call that we had cows out. These calls usually come at very inconvenient times - Christmas eve night, the middle of a downpour, or just as we are sitting down to eat. It doesn't really matter when it happens we have to immediately drop what we are doing to check things out - OR we could have cows all over the east side of the county.
This particular morning 50 heifers somehow got out of their pasture. The kids and I went on to church while Ben, Darrel, and Bart tried to round everything back up.
Unfortunately we don't live in an area that I consider "range land". Our cattle ground consists of lots of herds on different pastures within a 15 mile range. So basically we have to be extra mindful because we have lots of neighbors and roads that we come in contact with. When we have cows out, they can quickly be on someone else's land, etc.
By the time Ben got there, part of the heifers were on their way to a big area of dense woods and the other group was making it's way to a major state highway - on a Sunday morning. LONG story short (or semi-short anyway) they all ended up back in the pasture together except this one -

One heifer broke her leg before making it back into the pasture, so she was taken to the meat processor. We always finish calves off in the feed lot with grain. However, in this case we had to make an exception and just turned everything into hamburger meat.

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