Reminder.... watch those iced ponds!

[Fire Sweep Ranch]

Sad story.... where my daughter works at the dairy. I drove by to drop of my middle daughter, since all heck broke lose at the dairy and the oldest daughter needed help. I guess three heifers, probably yearlings (holsteins), had gotten in the frozen pond. Two were dead (and still floating), and the third was almost dead. When I drove by, she was lying about 5 feet from the pond with some straw/hay around her. I wondered why they did not pull her over to the dairy and put her under a lamp, since she was still in the snow and cold and it was dusk. Anyway, I bet she is dead by morning. I guess their milker has not come to work for several days now, so they are short handed, and the other worker is on vacation. No time to get the heifer out of the pasture a mile away and take to the farm. That is why I farm beef.... dairy is so time consuming!

 

[Limomike]

Yep, not only dangerous for cows and calves, but even moreso for humans.
This teen boy found out about them in a bad way:

http://www.tulsaworld.com/communities/c ... f6878.html

 

[Fire Sweep Ranch]

Found this tonight:

This is one of my Paint mares, and when I looked over the fence at her all I saw was the red! I went out there to check her out, expecting something bad. It really is not that bad, and I think it looks so nasty because she is wet, and the blood spreads more and she has white legs. I think she cut her legs on the iced over pond, trying to break it. That is all I can figure. Our black Quarter mare has the same marks, but her legs are black so there is no obvious blood, just a big swollen knot at the same spot. I have to say, this is the first time our pond has froze mostly solid... so I am dealing with some new issues. We went out nightly to break the ice on the edge for the horses, but I guess not often enough. The cows all have auto waters, so they have no access to the ponds...

 

[denvermartinfarms]

I've never seen that before.