Friday Farm Fun- Farm Yard Shuffle

Bud & George with Sunny in the background

In preparation for selling calves on Monday we had to move the cattle from the field by the house and put them in the one closer to the corral.

And as usual things didn't go quite as smooth as we'd hoped.

Earlier in the day in preparation for the move, I lured the horses in the corral and locked them in. We needed the field they were in for the cows and calves.

There were two calves out in the field next to the cows. While my hubby went to the gate we wanted them to leave the field by, I headed to the corner gate to open it for the two calves to join the rest. Only part of the cows followed me to the far gate rather than the gate they were supposed to go through. I had to keep them back and our Border Collie Boots went around the calves to bring them to the gate. The calves finally stopped trying to play with Boots and headed for the gate, but by then the other cows were headed to my gate. I managed to keep them back and the calves wandered through. After closing the gate, hubby and I turned the cows around and headed them out the right gate.

Coming down off the bridge

With the herd on the way to the bridge and field, I ran across a field to the bridge, opened the gates there and then the one to the pasture. The cows stayed well grouped until they came to the bridge. We like to keep them grouped because calves who haven't crossed a bridge before will balk unless the cows are pushing them across.

Calves that didn't cross bridge

All came across but an unruly group of six calves. We closed the gate on the herd and haltered up the horses to lead them to their new pasture. Eventually all but two of the calves made their way across the bridge and we let them into the pasture. The next morning there were still two out. One had crossed the bridge. Boots and I put it into the field. But the youngest calf was still lose until that evening when hubby got home and we let the mother cow out to bring the calf across the bridge and eventually into the field with the rest.

The bull watched all the going's on with rapt attention.