So the sheriff's office calls at 2:30 this morning. Cow stuck in a cattleguard. Been having a problem with a couple of wandering bulls, figure yeah it's one of them. Great. Drive up to see what the situation is and it's one of the neighbor's cows. (At this point after chasing these bulls around daily for the past two weeks and constantly fixing the next low spot in the fence etc. I am actually just glad it's not something of OURS!) all four legs down in the railings.
Worked until daylight, get three legs out, we are pooped, she is too weak to help anymore and makes one last twist in exactly the wrong direction. (don't want to leave out all the "helpful" and "observant" people driving around at that time of night stopping to get out and PET the "poor cowie" or tell us her legs are caught or offering to "help" - uh, yeah you got a loader or some plywood in your trunk?) At this point if she had been mine, that old and that weak, I would have just put her down, but of course she isn't mine and I am too chicken to do that to the neighbor's animal without an OK. Problem is he lives 3 hours away (just leasing the place she came off of) and is DEAF as a post. Old timer (great guy - like to talk to him in person, but on the phone....
) wants to send somebody else over to check (me being a female, I'm probably not qualified to make these kind of calls doncha know) so I call the sheriffs office back and tell them we are probably going to have to put her down and will need some kind of something from the county road crew to lift/drag her out of there with, but waiting on another "inspection" and final word from the owner. Of course after all the arranging and calls etc she makes one more effort and we get her out of there.
So then I have to call everybody back and sound like a fool - she even got up after qa bit and staggered off the road. I still think she is going to die, but she was up and proved me wrong for the moment anyway.
Now the real puzzle of this thing is WHY in the Heck was she over here. I don't have any feed left - in fact we have been having a real problem with OUR animals going over THERE! - he has a little grass left PLUS he has been feeding some kind of truckloads of cornstalks or something to them for months - they are always on that feed ground when I go by the place - they don't look much better than mine for it (tells you something about range cows on welfare) but this cow had to have wandered AT LEAST 2.5 miles and either another cattleguard or two fences OR she came around from the railroad and a mountain which is actually more likely (really bad fencing) yet much farther distance (4 to 5 miles at least) and really poor country. Why was she over here? Crazy.
Worked until daylight, get three legs out, we are pooped, she is too weak to help anymore and makes one last twist in exactly the wrong direction. (don't want to leave out all the "helpful" and "observant" people driving around at that time of night stopping to get out and PET the "poor cowie" or tell us her legs are caught or offering to "help" - uh, yeah you got a loader or some plywood in your trunk?) At this point if she had been mine, that old and that weak, I would have just put her down, but of course she isn't mine and I am too chicken to do that to the neighbor's animal without an OK. Problem is he lives 3 hours away (just leasing the place she came off of) and is DEAF as a post. Old timer (great guy - like to talk to him in person, but on the phone....
) wants to send somebody else over to check (me being a female, I'm probably not qualified to make these kind of calls doncha know) so I call the sheriffs office back and tell them we are probably going to have to put her down and will need some kind of something from the county road crew to lift/drag her out of there with, but waiting on another "inspection" and final word from the owner. Of course after all the arranging and calls etc she makes one more effort and we get her out of there.So then I have to call everybody back and sound like a fool - she even got up after qa bit and staggered off the road. I still think she is going to die, but she was up and proved me wrong for the moment anyway.
Now the real puzzle of this thing is WHY in the Heck was she over here. I don't have any feed left - in fact we have been having a real problem with OUR animals going over THERE! - he has a little grass left PLUS he has been feeding some kind of truckloads of cornstalks or something to them for months - they are always on that feed ground when I go by the place - they don't look much better than mine for it (tells you something about range cows on welfare) but this cow had to have wandered AT LEAST 2.5 miles and either another cattleguard or two fences OR she came around from the railroad and a mountain which is actually more likely (really bad fencing) yet much farther distance (4 to 5 miles at least) and really poor country. Why was she over here? Crazy.
