# Calves go to town!



## Blue Duck (Jun 4, 2009)

I got a call last night at 2:00AM that I had 39 calves at the main intersection in town. By the time I got there the local police had made it a high speed chase across town. They ran them out into a field at the edge of town. I looked for them until 4:00 walking fields and driving around with a spotlight and could not find them or any tracks where they left the field the police ran them in. I assumed they went to the dense timber back on the river. So I went back at dawn to find them but after several hours of searching I got a call they had been seen three miles on the other side of town. They had apparently double backed and went through town again. When I caught up with them they calmly walked back home except seven were still missing. I searched for the last seven for an hour and could not find them and decided to eat lunch and then resume the search. Before I got to eat I got another call. It seems the calves had decided to attend the annual classic car show at the city park. Trying to get calves to walk through town with a lot of people in town is about impossible!! I had a couple hundred people with camera phones documenting the excitement and getting in the way. I finally cornered them in some timber next to the park and had my father watch them while I went and got the stock trailer and some panels.

WHAT A DAY!!!!!


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## endrow (Dec 15, 2011)

hate when that happens anyone with cattle knows the phone ringing at 2:00am is never good news


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## schlepperfahrer (Apr 7, 2013)

i kow the feeling


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## Vol (Jul 5, 2009)

Dang Duck.....I bet your in a deep sleep now.....I know that had to be very stressful on the last 7 after what you had already been thru....and frustrating with townfolk not knowing that they were spooking the calves with all their squealing and carrying on. Glad you got them all gathered. It was fortunate for you that someone knew that those calves belonged to you.

Regards, Mike


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## enos (Dec 6, 2009)

Buy a man a steak and he will eat for a day....Buy him the whole cow and he will learn how to swear!


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## Tim/South (Dec 12, 2011)

Time for a well deserved nap for you. Glad you were able to get them all home safe and sound.
Unless people have been around cattle they seem to think they only respond to "Yee-Haw".
Luckily the up side of owning and working with bovines far out weighs those tense moments the they inflict upon us from time to time.


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## swmnhay (Jun 13, 2008)

schlepperfahrer said:


> i kow the feeling


A few yrs ago I got some new calves in and a medical chopper came over low in middle of night and spooked them.3 went over the fence.I never knew it till I got a call from a neighbor at 9 AM that a deputy was trying to figure out who's cattle they were.So I drove over a couple of miles and the Deputy was all pissed off sayng he was chaseing them all night.I asked him where was he chaseing them to?







He got his panties in a bunch and told me he was going to give me a ticket.I said Really for what.No answer.LOL.I told him we would get them rounded up and he could leave.He musta been late for donuts.Stomped back to his car and left.


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## GeneRector (Jun 4, 2008)

Howdy! I know what it is like to round up loose cows and calves. When I was a teenager we had a few cows and my little sister would occasionally let them out whenever she got mad at me for trivial matters. It usually only took a little while to round them all up; however, it really pulled my chain big time whenever this happened. My parents would never do anything about it and my little sister would get a great laugh while I gathered up the cattle. We finally sold them! Always, Gene


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## dbergh (Jun 3, 2010)

Oh Boy-Cow Stories!!!!!
Went to bed one fall night a couple of years ago only to be awakened by cows balling out in the yard. Never a good sound to wake up to in my experience. Damn, the "Girls" must have come up from the back forty again on their own so I threw on my sweats and mud boots and grabbed a flashlight to go take a look, planning to put them in the pen for the rest of the night before I took them out to the pasture in the morning-Again! Mind you, we only have about 20 pairs of our own cattle but when I shine the light out in the inky black darkness i see hundreds of pairs of yellow eyes staring back at me. Om my gosh, what in the he!! have we got going here? Looks like we are being invaded by aliens or something. Turns out those eyes were all attached to black hided cows belonging to the nearest neighbor a couple miles down the road. Well after a phone call or two and several hours of chasing cows up and down the highway and railroad tracks, through my stack yard, over, under and through several fences we all managed to get them in a fenced pasture that would hold them until morning until they could get them back home. Evidently the neighbors hired man had fed that evening and he might of forgotten to close the gate behind him. Pretty sure he is no longer the hired man. Turns out my girls were down in their pasture minding their own business the whole time!
One more:
Moving our pairs in from winter pasture to finish calving at the house last month. Only about 1/4 mile away but you have to cross main highway and the Union Pacific Mainline to get from here to there.
Had this discussion with my wife:
_Me: Honey I think we are a little short on time and we should probably wait until tomorrow to do this.
Wife: No, it's ok. We don't have far to go and it wont take long!_
Well, I come home to cows being brought up from the bottom end of the field and heading toward the gate. At this point 3 or 4 head decide they aint goin' nowhere except back to greener pastures. So we gather up what we can and head across the highway and the RR tracks and on into the pen at home, business as usual. I close the gate to the pasture and figure we will bring the other three in at a later date when we have more time. By this time we are too late to make it to our other function so everyone else heads home. Then the wife decides after a bit that she wants to work her other horse and so she decides to go gather up the last 3 pair and bring them in by herself. I am busy with some other chores across the road and watch her out of the corner of my eye for 15 to 20 minutes as she goes around and around trying to get these girls gathered up. After it is obvious she is not going to make this happen on her own I decide I better get on my own "horse" (which has 4 wheels and an engine) and help her if we are going to remain married going forward. So we get them gathered up and I am behind the group holding them while she opens the gate(2 strand Hot-Hot wire). Calves are winded and bedded down and cows are mad as he!! by now!  Somewhere in this process the horse manages to get his hind legs caught up in the hot wire laying on the ground. Now, anyone that knows horses understands that getting something caught up in your horses hind legs is usually not a good thing at all, let alone an energized hot wire! This is where the rodeo really begins: The horse and my wife manage to part ways, both still in one piece, as he goes ballistic and bolts for home trying to get away from that hot wire. I can still hear that hot wire zapping him every second or so from clear over on my side and he is not having anymore of that! He makes it to the highway and steps on his reins and stops dead (not literally) -right in the middle of the highway. Fortunately it is a fairly quiet Saturday afternoon with not much traffic. The wife and I are busy doing our best to contain the cows and calves, she on foot and me on my UTV. (Nothing quite as useless, or as mad, as a cowgirl on foot). By now the cows are actually pretty much just watching the whole show and appear to be quite amused by the entire process and are standing still quite well. At some point a friend of ours happens to drive by and untangles the horse and leads him off the highway and we all proceed to move the pairs over to the new pen with the rest of the herd. Job complete!
I sure am glad we live in "Open Range" country where these things are a pretty common occurance and no one really even bats an eye when things go haywire-they just stop and help you pick up the pieces and get the job done.
It is also at times like this that I wonder once in a while, why we bother with the cows at all. But when we sell a batch of calves it is then that I remember that those girls are much better than me at turning junk hay into cash! (I am actually better at turning cash in to junk hay!)
Truth be known the cows and calves bring us a real sense joy and satisfaction every year when we have a nice calf crop and add a lot to our overall quality of life.
If it was easy everybody would be doing it!


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## kyfred (Dec 23, 2009)

Gives me a sick feeling in my stomach just to think about your nightmare. Havn't had any in town yet but we are not far from town and still have cattle.


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## Waterway64 (Dec 2, 2011)

Reminds me of our dairy years. Nothing brought everybody to action like some one screaming, "The cows are out!" Mel


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## tnwalkingred (Jun 8, 2010)

Here's mine. A couple months ago I get a call early in the morning. Turns out someone has spotted some black with white face cows down at the local BAR! I jump out of bed, call a few buddies, and hook my truck up to the flatbed. I load up some corral panels and feed. I found my two heifers lounging out around the local beer joint! LOL. I set up the panels in a corner and shook the feed bucket. They came a running like they normally do and I closed them up in the pen. About that time here comes my buddy with the stock trailer. We load them up and get them home. Now I figure I will feed them some more grain while I walk the fence and see if I can find where they got out at. I put there feed out and started walking the fence line. Not 30 seconds into walking the fence line I hear this loud rumbling noise! I turn around to see my two heifers running full speed and I mean FULL speed toward the middle of the Southern fence. Before I can head them off I see them both jump my fence like a pair of spring fawns! OUT AGAIN and headed back to the bar! Luckily this time I was able to head them off before they got to the highway and off my place. I was finally able to get them back into a holding lot. I walked to the spot where they jumped out to find the fence in place and maybe only a foot shorter than the rest of the fence. I cut a hog panel to length and put it in the spot where they jumped out (on a side note, hog panel cut in 4' pieces is really handy to have around when your trying to repair fences in a hurry). I walked the rest of the fence and and then turned the girls back out. They ran full speed again to the exact same spot only to figure out they can jump high but not that high! LOL. Guess they just wanted a cold bud light! Can't say I balme them!

--Kyle


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