Escapees!

Anyone who grew up on a farm can probably relate when I say that there are four words that when spoken, will make a farmer drop everything and take action .  Four words that will make you jump out of bed without a second thought or cut your shower short no matter if you had rinsed or not!  Four words that are never spoken softly or slowly.

"THE COWS ARE OUT!!"

Growing up we all knew what this meant. This meant that you ran as fast as you could to put your boots on and go outside and help. If it was the middle of the night, you were in your pajamas and boots.  If you were in the shower you were in whatever you could grab and boots, with wet messy hair.  The milk cows didn't get out today, but some others did!

Today we dehorned 10 more calves and made a second group pen.  Dehorning is necessary for the safety of other animals and people.  Remember Lane Frost, the professional bull rider? Yeah, we don't want that to happen to us.  We use a burner that acts similar to a brander and stops the growth of horns. This does not take long and we quickly cote the area with a spray to numb any soreness.

After we dehorn the calves, we move them to their group pen.  They get to escape the small isolated calf hutch and move into the mansion with their family.  This is the kind of escape we would all enjoy!  There, they share a 10-bar feeder (it has 10 nipples on it).

They all run up and eat at the same time.  When the weather is questionable, we have a "super-hutch" in the pen for them to use to get out of the weather. Its like a really big calf hutch.





Meanwhile, something spooked our eldest son's 4-H calf, and it literally jumped right out of it's pen. It cleared the panel in front of his hutch without so much of a scrape, and continued to run all around.  This calf "Clover" is now almost 2 months old, and catching him isn't so easy any more.  We managed to corner him near the barn and slip a halter on. I told our son that it was getting hard to catch him and that I thought "you better start training him to lead, and since we just got the halter on him, now would be a good time to start!'

At first, he was a little stubborn.  Then he took off.  Rick was explaining to the other kids how "Clover was training (our son) to lead!"  After he dragged him on his stomach through the mud, we decided that he had probably had enough for one day, so we put him back in his hutch.

I think we'll be seeing him working a little bit more often with his calf!

 

While that was going on, there was a chicken that apparently forgot to go back in the coop last night, and we wanted all of them in there tonight because of the inclement weather we're having.  The other 3 kids chased and cornered that escapee, and finally, we got her put back where she belonged.

All of our escapees are now back where they belong.....for now!

 

-Terri