I need advice

[Stocker Steve]

All electric fence manufacturers recommend you don't charge barb wire. If the animal gets hung up in it, the pulsating charge could cause physical shock and kill the animal.

I have heard this reccomendation many times - - but I have never seen or heard of cattle be hung up in a 4 strand barbed fence, much less a one strand fence. Is this just an issue with horses?

 

[SCRUBS620]

This story is just for laughs boys so enjoy at my expense.

With all of this talk about bulls getting out I just have to share my experience over the summer. I have been getting a few small calves to raise over the summer to sell to friends and family for meat. This spring I got a deal on a couple of 400 lb bulls. I kept saying I needed to cut them but I just did not get around to it. I wanted something to get in the freezer faster so I bought an 800 lb heifer. I kept them separated for about a week and then decided to put them out into the pasture the first part of april. They were supposed to be separated by electric fence. Well the heifer started bellowing at the calves, I think she was in heat. She wanted to be by them and they wanted to be by her. Pretty soon one of the bulls touched electric, put his head down, went through that one and the next four. Separated them several times but every time he would touch the electric he would just keep running. Finally I just tore all the inner fences down and let them be together. I figured they could not breed her being that little. I tried the next week to get them through the head gate. The same one that busted the electric, put his head down and busted underneath part of the temporary chute and off he went. I chased him on foot about 2 miles over wooded ravines and muddy fields. We finally got him back in, I moved the headgate, and got them back in but the bands I was planning on using would not go over their testicles. I had never cut anything that big (550 to 600 lbs at this point). I decided to get rid of one of the bulls and the heifer early and just keep the one bull to eat (good if their young IMO). Stupid me, I decided to keep the one that kept giving me problems (The other one looked better for sale and I did get good money at the sale barn for the other one though). I figured I could keep him a little longer until he was big enough to butcher. Everything was fine while he had his lady in with him (who I think was bred by the middle of the summer). The guy I sold her to picked her up the middle of August. After that he went nutso on me. He would charge anything he could. He would spend all of his time in one corner of the pasture (I think wearing the fence down). One day I saw him putting his head over the fence in a low spot (I had not got a strand of barbed wire over the top of my woven fence yet). I thought he was coming over so I had to chase him back from the fenceline and try to repair it all the while he was snorting and pacing back and forth directly in front of me. Stupid me, again, thought I could keep him in for a little longer until the appointment for the locker I had in October. I saw him out there running back and forth across the pasture, beating something up that was in with him. The next thing I know he is over the fence. I went back there to see where he had went. He was in the woods pawing and rolling in the dirt. I did not think he would be that close so I could not get back to the house. I climbed on a hay wagon close to the edge of the woods and luckily I had my cell phone with me to call my wife to pick me up with my truck. I called several other guys to help (some with guns). I figured I would have to shoot him. I kept getting out of the truck taunting him to keep him from going any farther into the woods, he would charge at me and I would book it back to the truck. He finally headed down a ravine to the road so we headed him off with the truck. We played truck rodeo for the next 45 minutes until we finally got him back in. He went to the locker the next week (I guess they felt sorry for me) but I still feel triumphant whenever I eat a hamburger from him!!!!

Alot of lesson learned the hard way because of him .