Thinking about sending her back

[milkmaid]

and other idle chatter. LOL.

Some days I really dislike that nurse cow. Not the new one, I mean 'ol 311. Sunday morning I'm just getting ready to head to church - have my Sunday best on - and the phone rings. Boss on the other end; he lives just down the road, "Just thought you'd like to know 311 is out on my hay field. I don't really care, but it is the third cutting and it's really rich - you probably don't want her out there."

No, I don't.

So I get a bucket of grain, catch her, pen her up, late for church. Later I walk the fence line to see where she went through. My strand of wire across the canal is down, so I swim the canal and put it back. Brrrrr that's cold. I was muttering about how much I disliked her the whole time. LOL.

So...turned her back out to pasture and not 10 minutes later she's back out on the field. Ugh. Guess that fix didn't work. Right now she's penned up getting hay and I'm not real happy. It's only September - I didn't want to have to feed hay for another month. She's still paying her way in milk, but it's not as cheap to keep her as it was over the summer.

Her four foster calves are about 4 months old - they were born ~the first of May. I'd estimate they're around 325-350lbs right now and I could wean them. I could have weaned them two months ago. However, I really wanted to leave them on until December when she's ready to dry off.

I don't know...maybe I will wean the calves and see if my boss will take her back until December when she's ready to dry, and I'll bring her home then. There'll be snow on the ground in December and all my critters will be close up in the pens; she won't be getting out then. She'll pay her way over at the dairy - easily - and I can sell the calves; didn't want to winter the steers anyway.

How well do you folks suppose three angus/holstein steer calves would sell right now? Approx 325-350lbs, easy to work around, vacc, polled, healthy and FAT. Well, as fat as a holstein cross steer can get. LOL. I'd prefer to sell them straight off the cow rather then mess with weaning 'em. That in itself is a pain.

Just wish that cow would quit swimming the canal and stay where she's told. Would make everything soooo much simpler.

 

[bigbull338]

cows love giving trouble esp on sun morning.or any other time you have something to do.an they do their dangest to mess things up.the selling price of calves is hard to guess.but i bet youd get tween 400 an 500 a hd.maybe more.scott

 

[Beefy]

wait a minute! Cows arent supposed to get out on Sunday morning?!

 

[Medic24]

No Beefy...not when you are dressed in your finest! The cows should show some patience and class by either waiting until church was over, or until monday when it was proper to get out.lol
I hate a Sunday morning escapee!

But I am sooo lucky....church is just across the creek and the road.. so it's a five minute walk... and it affords a great view back of my pastures, so as I go in, and then coming back out I take a quick view and inventory my animals.

Some years back, we came out to see my goat munching away at the shrubs at the front doors.

 

[Caustic Burno]

Some years back, we came out to see my goat munching away at the shrubs at the front doors.

Man Bar-Bque goat sure is good.

 

[Dee]

I may have a use for the swimming cow. I have pastures seperated by a road. The cows can walk under the bridge, through the creek (mid rib at the deepest) to get to both sides. Only my leased bulls would go through. So I now have "rotatinal grazing", where I go over every few weeks, drop the fence and run all 50 head across the road to the other pasture. Sure would be nice if they would graze the whole pasture themselves with out a personal appearance and invite from me.

 

[Angus Guy]

Milkmaid

You have to learn 1 thing. GOD HAS A SENSE OF HUMOR AND THIS IS HIS WAY OF SHOWING IT :lol:

 

[madbeancounter1]

Cheer Up MilkMaid,

I spent all Father's Day chasing the boss' cows while he was watching his boy play ball. Drove 400 miles that weekend picking up fence panels and tools to keep them in their place. 26 of them learned to stay inside the fence. #27 will find any way possible, be it improbable, to get outside. She doesn't go far. So I have quit trying to make her stay put.

Mama wasn't too happy with me or the boss... kind of ruined her plans for the day.

Kind of puts me in mind of when I was about your age. We had 5 weeks in a row where there was a blizzard. This was somewhere about week #3. Dad had gone on a business trip and had gotten snowed out. Everyone except Mom was snowed out come to think of it. Anyway, I had the good fortune to be snowed in with a cousin and his family. Snow started on Friday evening and quit sometime Sunday. Snow Plows didn't hit the road I was on until sometime Tuesday. My sis was snowed in in town with some friends from school and she got out and was able to get home sooner than I. About 3pm the phone rang. The hogs were all out. Snow had drifted across the fences and was packed hard enough for them to walk on. right about then the plow went so I headed out.

When I got home it was a three ring circus. The neighbor man had come down to help. I hauled fence panels out of the shed and started wiring them together and set them on top of the other fences. Just about dark we got the last of the hogs back in but not before several comedic events,

 

[milkmaid]

Yep those Sunday mornings. :lol: My other neighbor down the road has an electric fence that always gets shorted out on Sunday morning. It's gotten better over the years, but it used to be we could count on his cows being out every Sunday. LOL.

One night we had half-a-dozen black angus bulls in our backyard - and that at 10pm. Several four-wheelers and horses followed in a matter of minutes and we were more amused than upset with everyone racing around our backyard.

Back when I was eleven or twelve I had three holstein steers I was raising over the winter. I called the vet out Sunday morning because one of them looked a little bloated. Looking back now, I realize he really wasn't that bad off, and if it had happened now I would have given a little therabloat and not worried about it - or even just not done anything. That vet was really good; he came out at 8am, doctored the calf, only charged me $80 when he could have charged twice that. Easily. He retired several years ago and there's a lot of folks locally who really miss him, myself included. The new vet that took over the practice has some outrageous prices. I rarely go there for anything nowdays.

I was thinking 325lbs at $1.25/lb is about $415/head, isn't it? Comes out to...$1245 for the three of 'em. Does that sound reasonable?

 

[dun]

The new vet that took over the practice has some outrageous prices. I rarely go there for anything nowdays.

Prices may not be afforadable but they would have to be really rediculous to be "outrageous". When you consider the investment in dollars, time and working hours and conditions, there aren;t many folks that would do it. But what is rediculous to one person may be reasonable to another. We're lucky in that our vet is a lot younger then I am so I'll be moldering in the grave long before he retires.

dun

 

[milkmaid]

Well...just looking at prescription drugs; $34 for a 12 pack of Pirsue mastitis treatments at my main vets'...$52 for the same stuff at the other clinic. I know where I'm going.

 

[bigbull338]

i used to buy pirsue at my local coop.when i was milking cows.an it really wasnt that good.but it would clear up light cases of mastitis.scott

 

[CowCop]

~~

Just an idea.

Have you tried hobbles ?

Had a fence jumping yearling we boarded for the summer and I got sick and tired of having to chase her home a few times.

The owner didn't want to sell her or ship her. Didn't want to come get her and take her home either.

Irritated me since MY TIME is as valuable as his.

I pondered this a bit to find a workable solution and thought of the hobbles.

I started her off in the corral with them for 2 days of hay feeding and then opened the gate to the 2 acre lot for 2 days.
All seemed well so I turned her out with the steers in the 20 acre lot and never had another issue with her jumping fences.

 

[milkmaid]

Well I talked to the boss....and he wants nothing to do with taking her back! Sure surprised me. Says he's afraid she'd die on him and he really doesn't want to deal with that. If I really want to send her back he'll take her, but he really doesn't want to. In my mind, she could just as easily die at my place as at his, but of course it's up to him.

I don't know now. Anyone have any good suggestions on how to pound fence posts in the middle of a swift-moving canal when the water's neck deep? LOL. The canal doesn't get drained until the first of November, which is when I was planning to fence it.

Hobbles are an interesting idea, but I think what that cow really needs is a strand of electric wire over the canal, just above the water level. :shock: Bet ya she won't try that one twice. 8)

 

[sidney411]

Milkmaid - we have several LARGE creeks/drainage ditches runing across our place. We got some concrete panels (they look a lot like cattle panels but are bigger in size) and set a telephone size pole on either side of the creek deep with lots of concrete, anchored on the sides away from the creek- not attached to the fence. Run a cable across these 2 poles and hang the panels off the cable. They swing so when the water rises and junk floats by it can go under. Someone here also suggested a while back using sheet-metal. I think that may even work better since the debris can easily slide by it rather then get caught in the panels. I think you would have less of a problem with this setup them with a hot wire across the creek.

 

[jersey lilly]

We use the sheet metal hung on a cable method. We have 3 creek entrances and 1 exit on our place. makes for alotta work on upkeep of flood gates but it's bottom land and raises some fine cattle. #17 cow insisted here while back on gittin out on the road, always 10pm at night. Can't have THAT!!! We fenced, and patched, and put up more tin, for weeks, and kept gittin calls that she was out. Got to the point I couldnt find where she was gettin out, or back in when we'd chase her back. She hadda calf, n I thought ok now she'll stay in to tend the calf. NOT........she'd leave the lil begger and git out and stay out all night long. Finally fed up with it all we just pasture roped her and the calf and hauled her to the sale. It's not worth the chance that someone might hit her on the road at night. Not only might they get hurt, but there's always a possibility that they might sue. So she took a short ride in a long trailer. One of my best lookin cows. But.....oh well!!
Oh and the tin was hung from a cable reachin down to about 3 inches of the ground. Found several times where she was gittin down on her knees and goin under that. Sometimes they are just hard headed and need to go.