If you follow me on Instagram or Twitter, you probably saw that we had an… incident… on Saturday.
These calves are supposed to be behind a fence in the pasture, not in my (sad) flower beds!
Yep, they made a break for it.
They even tried to get our Husky involved. But she wasn’t having it. (I think all dogs really want is a nice porch to nap on.)
Oh, and it wasn’t just two calves that made a break for it on that beautiful Saturday afternoon. It was five of the seven. Five.
I don’t think this guy even noticed what was going on. He was enjoying his nap in the hay.
There was one other calf left inside the fence. She was pretty mad… she raced around the pasture, but couldn’t quite figure out how to get out.
This big lady, on the other hand, thought Saturday would be a great day for a walk.
This is the only cow we have left that has not had her baby yet. (Translation – she’s the fattest cow on our farm right now.) And she still managed to get out!
Farmer Doc got home later that afternoon, and we were able to herd everybody back inside the fence without (much) drama. Phew!
But it did change our plans for the weekend! Farmer Doc loaded up our Gator with fencing supplies, and spent all afternoon Sunday and Monday fixing the fence.
He had to take down some broken wires and re-string some new wires.
Then he had to manually tighten all the wires so there is no slack in the lines.
Finally, the last step is to get the electricity working again. Our fence is supposed to be “hot” (electrified). It gives the cows a shock when they touch it, so they don’t try to eat the grass on the other side of the fence, or crawl through the wires. It’s similar to an invisible fence for dogs, except this one is not invisible. And don’t worry, they learn pretty quickly to stay away from the shocking fence!
Safe and sound, back at home!
All the photos in this post were taken with the Samsung Galaxy camera from Verizon Wireless. Thanks to VZW for letting me test-drive this camera!
Calves will normally follow the fence if Mom is on the other side which does help
They took a romp in my front yard for a little while, but eventually ended up in the back where they could see their moms. After they got their initial curiosity satisfied, they were happy to settle down and hang out near the big girls. Lucky for us, cattle are herd animals and like to stay with their friends!