Dave
Well-known member
So on one side of the field where the cows are is the river. It isn't much of a river when compared to what I am use to over on the coast. About 30 feet wide and shallow enough that I have driven a quad across it a number of times. It is running a little higher now as some spring run off has started. But it does have fairly fast currant.
On the other side of the field is the irrigation ditch. It is not running water this time of the year but there is a couple inches of standing water in it. The field side slope up to the ditch is mild in places and fairly steep in others. The top of the dike is maybe 4 or 5 feet wide. The ditch is about 5 feet deep and pretty steep going down into the ditch.
I always worry that a cow will calf right beside the river. If a new calf were to stumble into the river it would be a goner. So a week or so a cow calved on top of the ditch bank. I went and drug that calf down off the dike into the field. During this last week I had a cow acting strange. The idea that she lost a calf crossed my mind but this is a flat wide open hayfield and I sure didn't see a sick or dead calf. Then yesterday B was coming up the road. It is right above the ditch. A Magpie flew up out of the ditch. He glanced down and saw something. He wasn't sure what. We went and explored. It was a dead calf. She went a calved at a point where the dike top is about 4 feet wide. The calf slid into the ditch and drowned in 2 inches of water. A person would have had to been right there to save it.
I worry about the river and lose one in 2 inches of water in the ditch. There has been 300 +/- calves born in that field in the last 4 years. The only 2 born up on the ditch bank happened in the same week. And I have never lost one to the river.
On the other side of the field is the irrigation ditch. It is not running water this time of the year but there is a couple inches of standing water in it. The field side slope up to the ditch is mild in places and fairly steep in others. The top of the dike is maybe 4 or 5 feet wide. The ditch is about 5 feet deep and pretty steep going down into the ditch.
I always worry that a cow will calf right beside the river. If a new calf were to stumble into the river it would be a goner. So a week or so a cow calved on top of the ditch bank. I went and drug that calf down off the dike into the field. During this last week I had a cow acting strange. The idea that she lost a calf crossed my mind but this is a flat wide open hayfield and I sure didn't see a sick or dead calf. Then yesterday B was coming up the road. It is right above the ditch. A Magpie flew up out of the ditch. He glanced down and saw something. He wasn't sure what. We went and explored. It was a dead calf. She went a calved at a point where the dike top is about 4 feet wide. The calf slid into the ditch and drowned in 2 inches of water. A person would have had to been right there to save it.
I worry about the river and lose one in 2 inches of water in the ditch. There has been 300 +/- calves born in that field in the last 4 years. The only 2 born up on the ditch bank happened in the same week. And I have never lost one to the river.