missing calf

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J Baxter

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I bought a pair of Brangus heifers Saturday. One about 350 lbs and one about 500 lbs. I brought them home Saturday afternoon and turned them out with my other cows. The 500lb heifer took right up with the other heifers in the pasture, but the 350lber immediately proceeded to look for mama. She ran around the pasture for about 10 minutes then as soon as I turned my back to mix some feed she went through the fence. I tracked her down in an old swamp about 3/4 of a mile behind the farm. I finally got her back home and promptly locked her up for the night in the stock trailer (I parked it in the middle of the other cattle in order for to become acclimated to them). I turned her out Sunday about lunch and she ran and bellowed for a couple of minutes. Then she settled down and stuck with the herd. She stayed with them all day and night and most of yesterday. When I got in late yesterday evening she was gone again. I looked for her for a couple of hours and finally gave up figuring eventually she'll come back as I have the only cattle in 20 miles and she'd have to cross rivers to get to them. Am I right in my theory or should I gather up a search party this afternoon?

JB
 
J Baxter":3gmhnjt1 said:
I bought a pair of Brangus heifers Saturday. One about 350 lbs and one about 500 lbs. I brought them home Saturday afternoon and turned them out with my other cows. The 500lb heifer took right up with the other heifers in the pasture, but the 350lber immediately proceeded to look for mama. She ran around the pasture for about 10 minutes then as soon as I turned my back to mix some feed she went through the fence. I tracked her down in an old swamp about 3/4 of a mile behind the farm. I finally got her back home and promptly locked her up for the night in the stock trailer (I parked it in the middle of the other cattle in order for to become acclimated to them). I turned her out Sunday about lunch and she ran and bellowed for a couple of minutes. Then she settled down and stuck with the herd. She stayed with them all day and night and most of yesterday. When I got in late yesterday evening she was gone again. I looked for her for a couple of hours and finally gave up figuring eventually she'll come back as I have the only cattle in 20 miles and she'd have to cross rivers to get to them. Am I right in my theory or should I gather up a search party this afternoon?

JB
If she wants out that bad she ain't yours. If she is yours be damn sure to have a good Liability Insurance Policy. Get her caught, loaded and gone to the next sale; for everyones sake.
 
IF you find her and you want to keep her put both calves in your corral for a few days . she is just looking for her mama right now . everthing i bring home goes in the corral for a few days :cboy:
 
Sounds like the 350# heifer was weaned the day you bought her.
You will have to find her and pen her tight for a couple of weeks.

The 500# heifer must have been already weaned.
The little one may or maynot come back on her own.
She's lookin for momma and will wear herself out completly before giving up.

I've learned to put all new cattle in a secure pen for atleast a few days when I bring them home, for numerous reasons.

Hillbilly
 
Do you have a gate on the same side as where the missing calf got out? If so, feed the herd close to a opened gate in the evenings or mornings. (close enough but not so close to where more might get out.) The herd will make a lot of bellering noise which might encourage the calf up. It's worked for me in the past.
 
Maybe I'll just let the herd go hungry for a couple of hours after their normal feeding time. I run late feeding them every once and a while and the make an awful lot of noise then. The calf is going to have to make the move though. I can't see her......both the soybeans and the swamp grass are chest high.

I would take our cow dog and try to run her out, but my brother accidentally ran over her last night and now I don't have a cow dog either. Anybody got any luck to spare? I wouldn't share mine with anybody short of the devil or the Clintons.
 
I had a pair of heifers I saved when i sold calves weekend before last. They got out the next day. I had to get our neighbor to come and rope the little be nice way down at the end of the hiway at a neighbors house. Got her in the trailer and back in the pen. This last weekend went in to feed and that little be nice rushed me and hit a panel and knocked the staples out of a cedar pole. I almost put her in the freezer myself but my gun was at the house :mad: Anyway we got her back in the pena and immediately her and her partner grew wheels! It just isn't worth messing with a be nice animal that is looking for a way out. We have weaned quite a few before and have never had one get out. BTW her mother will grow wheels as soon as we get her be nice in the pens. She was fine when we got her but we had to keep her locked in the pens for a week or so to docter her, every since that time she is completely nuts. I can't get her in the pens to save my life. I am getting the neighbors to come rope her to get her crazy self off of my farm.
 
sidney411":4u77w2eh said:
I had a pair of heifers I saved when i sold calves weekend before last. They got out the next day. I had to get our neighbor to come and rope the little be nice way down at the end of the hiway at a neighbors house. Got her in the trailer and back in the pen. This last weekend went in to feed and that little be nice rushed me and hit a panel and knocked the staples out of a cedar pole. I almost put her in the freezer myself but my gun was at the house :mad: Anyway we got her back in the pena and immediately her and her partner grew wheels! It just isn't worth messing with a be nice animal that is looking for a way out. We have weaned quite a few before and have never had one get out. BTW her mother will grow wheels as soon as we get her be nice in the pens. She was fine when we got her but we had to keep her locked in the pens for a week or so to docter her, every since that time she is completely nuts. I can't get her in the pens to save my life. I am getting the neighbors to come rope her to get her crazy self off of my farm.


Cut me a good deal and I will get the boys and come get her off your hands ! I am a sucker for a challenge.
 
Tman -

Thanks for the offer, but I think it may be a bit far for you to come for one be nice cow. Our neighbor that got the heifer back for us ropes for fun, he said he would do it for nothing just for the fun of it. He said it would give him an excuse to exercise his horse a bit :lol:
 
Oddly enough, about five years ago I had the same thing happen with a cow. We have two places, and had hauled a bunch of calves to the other place to wean. When I got up the next morning, one of the cows was missing. Found her about four days later in a pasture about 1/2 mile away. I'm guessing she heard a calf cry, and thought it was hers and lit out after it.

Luckily I took the trailer and a bucket of feed over to the pasture and loaded her right up. After a few days she must have figured feed was more important than finding junior.

She should come back, unless she's stuck somewhere. They will almost always try to find cows.
 
Two winters ago, I bought a bred angus cow off a guy that lives about twenty miles away. She had a calf that had just been weaned. It was late November. Put her in the fence with the rest of the cows. The next morning she was gone. Tracked her for the first mile on a snowmobile. Then she got into bush country and I had to track her on foot. Followed her for over six miles on foot through about a foot of snow and finally walked to a neighbors place another couple miles down the road. The first thing he asked me was if I was missing a cow. She was another three miles south. She was just a little cow and yet she cleared several 4 strand barbed wire fences on her quest to get back to her calf. Another seven miles, she would have been home. She was exhausted and aborted shortly after that. Just a bad deal all the way around.
 
Just as a little post script to that. This welshman who knew where my cow was told me to put a chain around her neck and hang a 4"x4" board on the bottom of it horizontally. Every time she jumps, the board hits her knees. I left that on her for about two weeks and she's never jumped a fence again.
 
I'm still looking for her. She has been out since Monday afternoon and I haven't seen hide nor hair of her. I've got several locals on the lookout. She has a fairly limited area that she can cover, but it is till darn near impossible to track down a calf in 40 acres of chest high soybeans much less a couple of square miles.
 
There's no use messing with that bad of a fool calf. If you find her the steps to success would be 30.06 then locker plant.

Craig-TX
 
Many a decent calf found it's way out while being weaned. That's natural. I lock em in the corral for a few days if they aren't being weaned at the sale barn. But now that it's out, I'd go ahead and eat it before it hitches a ride on someone's front bumper.
 
J Baxter.

I would checkout who ever has cows in your immediate area, thats probably where she headed.

We had this same thing happen awhile back, bought a real nice charolais heifer calf. Ended up at one of my neighbours one of his dairy cows had accepted it.

We both had a good laugh out of that.

Good luck.......... :) :)
 
J Baxter":3dbuzz2n said:
I'm still looking for her. She has been out since Monday afternoon and I haven't seen hide nor hair of her. I've got several locals on the lookout. She has a fairly limited area that she can cover, but it is till darn near impossible to track down a calf in 40 acres of chest high soybeans much less a couple of square miles.

A couple of years ago I bought a really lovely calm limousin heifer. By the time we got her home she had nearly destroyed the trailer. Turned her into a 50' square pen 8' high. She climbed the side and disappeared into 20 acres of pasture with an occasional patch of weeds. Didn't see her for almost a month even though we searched a grid to see if we could find her. Figured she'ld gone over the back fence and off into the wilds somewhere. One day I was driving through the pasture on the tractor and a movement caught my eye. I glanced over and it was the heifer laying in the weeds. She lowered her head very slowly like adeer would. I kept going and when I came back 5 minutes later she was gone. Didn';t see her for a couple of weeks, then one day she was in with the rest of herd. They'ld been in the same pasture as her all along, but she never sought them out. If she saw anyone she was gone like a rocket back into the rough stuff. Six months after we had gotten her she was calm(?) enough that we could get within 50 yds of her without her running. It took six darts to slow her down enough that we could get her in the trailer. Anieghbor that raises limos though it was hilarious. He says he has cows that he never sees till they run them all in and wean calves.

dun
 

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