Loose cow stories

[bandit80]

Surely everyone has had an experience with a cow, bull, or the like getting loose and taking a gant through the neighborhood.

Let's see who has the best story. I'll go first.

About 7 years ago, my brother and I took our bulls to the vet clinic to have a bse done prior to breeding season. Out vet clinic was located right on the edge of town. Had good corrals, good sweep tub, and was a pretty good setup. However, our vet at the time used the "elecotrojaculator", that sends an electric current to collect the bulls. Well needless to say, it sometimes upset the bulls very much. We had this one purebred Angus bull that got a really worked up, and jumped over the 6 foot corral. Now when I say jumped over, he absolutely cleared it like an olympic hurdler, didn't even bend the panels. :shock:

This is where the story gets interesting. The vet clinic was on the north edge of town, so which way do you think the bull goes? Of course, he went south. Our town is about 1000 people, so not very big, but big enough. As you can imagine, our goal was to get the bull out of town before someone got hurt, and worry about corraling him after that. Other brother had a place about a mile south of town that we thought we could drive him too. Well the bull was pretty mad at this point, and we kept working him down a street heading south right out of town. But low and behold, we get right to the edge of town, and into town comes about 3 or 4 4-wheelers that spook him right back into town!! Long story short, after getting charged 3 times, getting mad at the 4-wheeler riders who "thought" they were helping chase the bull, (only made things worse) and listening to the town cop keep saying, "that bull is going to hurt somebody", we finally caught the bull on the west edge of town by running him in with some people who had horses The whole ordeal lasted about 2 hours, and I had never been so close to getting by business handed to me by a charging animal. If a protective cow charges, she will USUALLY give after after a few steps. Not this bull. We played ring-around-a-picnic table about 4 times before I was able to peel off and get away.

In the end, nobody was hurt, (thankfully) we were able to give the bull some feed that evening, and he went from wanting to kill eveything in site to realizing we were friends again. Went and picked him up the next morning with no problem. The bull wasn't the same after that episode, however. He learend to hate corrals, 4-wheelers, and multiple people around him. We kept him for a couple more years then sent him packing.

 

[Maineshowgirl]

well last year at the cleveland show had a kids steer get loose from being weighed in . I guess he knew what was coming at the end of the week and wanted to see the city of cleveland. We where in the middle of town there 7745 people. So this calf get loose and takes off. Its bout 4 or 5 miles from the fair grounds to Walmart. They get him back in a trailer at Walmart. Guess he want to go shopping

 

[Wisteria Farms]

Well, here goes.
We decide to try our hand at cattle and get a heifer and steer. Brother next door can't be left out of the fun and decides to do the same. We were told these were WEANED calves. They weren't. Brother's being the first off the trailer got put straight into the barn. Ours however got let out into the pasture where they proceeded to go straight through the fence. (Not joking, they weren't in my pasture 5 minutes) We spend ALL DAY chasing these things and finally get them corraled at a neighbors (in the midst of this husband decides to play cowboy, hop on his paint horse who's never seen a cow and chase calves who've never seen a horse!). By nightfall we're exhausted but we put the unweaned calves in to a small, secured paddock.

Next a.m. brother calls as soon as the sun is up...HIS cattle have busted out of the barn only he has NO IDEA which way they went or how long they'd been gone. Off we go for another day of hunting. We look EVERYWHERE... no calves. At the end of the day I'm thinking "PISSS on it...I'm DONE" and I lay up on the kid's trampoline pretty much mad at the world. Pretty soon here comes brother's heifer walking across the yard bawling like crazy. She's lucky I didn't have a gun in my hand or we'd had steak for dinner!! Found his steer mixed in with neighbors cattle (don't know how he got in). It all worked out but the only thing that made me feel any better was hearing I wasn't the only one.

 

[I luv herfrds]

This happened 2 years ago. Got a call from our northern neighbor letting us know that our cows were out and our gate to the summer pasture was down. We grabbed the fencing tools, wire, posts and other things and head out.
We get out there and see about 6 pairs along the fence, but in our pasture. Okay.
We head down there the gate looks funny and we now have an extra bull. Southern neighbors $5500.00 bull has decided that he likes our heifers better then his. Well here comes the s. neighbor with his 4-wheeler and his hired hand.
Now we are ready for the show.
He tries to cut his bull out and through the now opened gate. After about 4 passes he gets the bull out the gate, but the bull cuts back along the fence line, he tears after the bull, when suddenly he cuts to the side. What just happened? He went zipping by a 5' rattlesnake. :lol:
Cuts the bull back again and zigs around the snake again. Of course we are no help by being on foot and I am not about to go out there with a snake I can't see.
Bull decides he has had enough of the 4-wheelers and just dives through our fence busting wires and poping staples for about 6-7 posts. Neighbor continues after him while his hire hand grabs the staple bucket and I grab the wire splisier. Never did get that bull out until we pulled our bulls. Two weeks later.
We agreed to not charge him pasture rent if he agreed to not charge us a bull user fee.

 

[bigbull338]

cows loose in town.well that happened to me bout 30yrs ago.went to a show in town.an after it was done my dad needs todo things in town.an he dont want heifer in trailer.so we go unload her in my gandparents small back lot.he says she be fine.so i go in the house.when he gets back she is gone.she jumped the fence.so i took off on foot checking all the yards.no mess so dont know wich way she went.well she went towards the highway.an we found her in a retired couples yard.they was panicing theres a cow in our yard.an she is madd trying to charge us.so i grabb the halter an calmly walk towards her.all the while they are saying she will hurt me.i get to her let her settle down put halter on her.lead her out an put her on the trailer.an they was amazed at how i caught that wild killer heifer.

 

[Florida cattle]

This one happened a few years back.
Bought 14 head of cow/calf pairs and heavy bred cows at the sale barn. Brought them home that evening and dropped them in the corral with feed and water for overnight observation and so I could worm and vacinate them the next day. Next morning all calves and cows are paired up all match (good) all cows are calm and easy going. Time for the meds so we run them throught the chute and a limo/char X with a 300 lbs. calf starts acting up. I think okay she will calm down when I turn them into the 8 acre pasture I use as quarantine on any new stuff I bring in. Open the corral gate and she blows out wide open and never slows down, thru the fence, down the drive and on the road with all the other cows and calves right behind her. The chase is on!

We get them in my hay field down the road, gonna work them thru a gate to my sister and brother-in-laws place to thier catch pen. Crazy fool breaks and runs w' the calf thru the fence at the hayfield and goes across the road thru the neighbors fence into his pasture. (lucky his cows were off in one of his back pastures) We were able to hold the group and get them in the pen. Now time to go after the nut job. Find her with the horses and guess what, she runs. We don't chase her but when we get near and she sees us she runs. Finally she runs into a swamp at the edge of the neighbors property and the calf goes thru the fence and runs down the dirt road to the highway and the guy working for me takes off and catches up drops the rope, piggen string, calf caught.

The cow is now 50 yards into the swamp in 4' of water in a thick black gum/cypress swamp, horses no use, time to go a wadin'. Drop a rope on the cow and dally off to a small black gum and she falls and sulls, her head goes under water. I think she would of drowned if I hadn't pulled her head out of water. Now to get her out of the swamp we fix a halter on her and tie some lariats together to pull her out with the horses. We pull a few feet and then i pull her head out of the water so she can catch her breath then we pull again. By this time we see leaches all over the cow, just great when you are standing in water waist deep. We finally get her on land and all of a sudden she stands up and starts fighting luckly we had already dropped another rope on her and she was stuck between 2 horses. We get the trailer close and we are able to pull her in finally.

Needless to say she went straight back to the corral and then back to the salebarn after her barbwire wounds had healed. all the happened in about 3 hours and the rest of the day was spent repairing all the fence.

 

[TexasBred]

Never had but one loose cow on my place and I left the darn gate open. Big pretty brangus lady walked out into the yard and refused to go back in. All attempt to force her resulted in her simply walking about 8 feet into the woods next to our place. Guess she knew I could do nothing but wait on her to come out. She lay around the yard for 4 days eating flowers and grass, making regular deposits of fertilizer here and there, drank all the water out of the bird bathes and making herself at home Wife would go out to work in her flowers (what were left) and cow would just lay there and watch. She finally started getting real thirsty. Wife walked out, opened the gate and went back in the house. Five minutes later she was at water trough drinking as if nothing ever happened. Gate shut, end of story. At least twice I thought about the shotgun but then she would just look at me with those big eyes and I'd just go get a beer and forget about her.

 

[iowafarmer]

Oh so many stories to tell. Well last week saturday had a cow jump a five strand barb wire fence in the field and get out on the black top. Not five minutes earlier i had gone past. So im on the yard workin on some stuff when i get a call from the sheriffs department saying there was a cow out on the black top. So i go flying out there on the fourwheeler. OH did i mention its 35 degrees out. so i go out there and sure enough here is a cow all spooky and ready to run. She sees me and takes off down the fence line in the ditch so at this point im on the black top so i flore it and start doin a bout 55 in fith geer trying to get caught up and get ahead of this cow who is running full out. I get ahead of her and turn around into the ditch and get her heading the other way towards home. so its goin ok she is running back the way she came and im behind her in the ditch. Then over the hill and right towards us come three cars right in a row on our side of the road. Well the cars see that there is something going on so the slow down. Of course the darn cow can't stay in the ditch so she runs up and onto the road towards the on coming traffic. Well i jsut stayed in the ditch till the cars passed then went tearing after her again. I got her back in the ditch but then she doubled back on me and headed the way we had jsut come from. SO i turn around get in front of her and turn her around. About htis tiem im getting pissed off. She runs and then all of the sudden gets a good idea and jumps the fence so she was in the right spot. She jumped the fence in the first place to cross the road and well thats what happpened. She could of jsut walked through the culvert underneath the road liek every other cow but maybe she was scared of the water and ice in it. She went through it to get out to the fieldin the first place but well cows arent always the smartest creatures.
A few years ago o nthe day i was going to leave for a nice week long vacation at a lake in Minnesotta. I go outs side and lone behold there are about 50 head of cattle running around on my lawn and all over the yard. They weren't my cattle was the problem. So i start calling the neighbors at 6:30 in the morning asking whose cattle these were. They were about 900 lb steers and weren't wild which helped. Well finally after a few callls i found out whose they were and the came and got them . The yard and lawn was torn up though casue we had 2 inches of rain that night. I have many stories about cattle getting out though and these are jsut a few. One of the biggest chases ive ever had is 400 head of feeder cattle at work busted a fence and scattered over a few mile radius one night. It was a long day trying to round them all up. Lost 6 to either getting hit or eating to much fresh grass and bloating.
A guy in the area had 250 head get out and lone behold they started running along the railroad. Well the train msut not of scared them becasue 150 died i think. The train msut fo been hitting them left and right. Good thing he had insurance. They were 650lbrs i think if i remeber right.

 

[Victoria]

This isn't a story about our cows getting loose but about some Buffalo coming to us. After the floods in 2005 we had very few fences left, as was the case for everyone up and down the river. We're driving to my house and see a couple of RCMP vehicles pulled over and two very large animals in our pasture. We pull up and they tell us that they got a call about some buffalo on the highway so they brought them down to our place because it appeared we had fences to hold them until they could contact the owner. We had to laugh, first that was pretty much our only standing fence, they couldn't see that it was open the other way and what 4 wire barbed fence keeps in buffalo anyway! They were speechless, because they knew we had cattle. I told them that they have just been staying home without fences (don't think they believed me) and that we were gettting them up as fast as possible. Well the buffalo hooked up with our cattle, freaked our cows right out, except one brave yearling bull that decided to try to breed them. :lol2: So off they went down the river, pulled up and told a fisherman there were buffalo coming, he obviously thought we were kidding until he saw them running toward him and he climbed a tree. The people finally did get them back as we followed and reported their whereabouts.