Missing heifer

Friday morning awoke sunny and warm. The rain was gone. No clouds were left. That didn't mean the grass wasn't wet outside from the all day rain on Thursday. What's up with the two jailbreakers in my middle pasture? I couldn't see any cattle so I got binoculars to look.

As I seen the jailbreakers the eagle I mentioned in my post about gopher traps flew across my view. My heifer was walking along the north/middle pasture fence. The herd was on the other side in the north pasture. Dan's steer/heifer was near my heifer and was walking around some of the trees.

Okay, good. They didn't do anything stupid overnight. Once the grass dries I'll go out to check on them.

Later when I went outside most of the herd was in the corral around the barn. Dan's animal was prancing back and forth near the north/middle pasture gate. It wanted to join the herd. I opened the gate and it came through and went to join the herd. Good. Only one left in the middle pasture.

I closed the corral gate and locked the herd around the barn. As they milled around, a quick count... 27. Okay. I have one left to get.

With the herd locked in the corral I left the north/middle fence gate open and went to search for my heifer. In the middle pasture I walked to the river. No heifer. I walked along the river. No heifer. I walked the boundaries of the middle pasture in a counter-clockwise motion. No heifer. I walked the boundaries clockwise. No heifer. I walked all around the trees looking for my heifer. (Other years I had walked right by black cattle lounging in the shade under low pine branches.) No heifer. I looked back into the north pasture in case my heifer found the open gate. No heifer.

I was really worried. I had visions my heifer fell into the river and drown. I thought about the south pasture. Maybe she pulled another "Houdini" and broke the fence and got into the south pasture. Around and around the south pasture and its trees I went. No heifer. I walked the river in the south pasture. No heifer. I really looked along the river in case her body got lodged in the trees and debris brought by the high water. No heifer. (A good thing).

I checked the middle pasture again. With no sign of my heifer I feared she went into the river at a dangerous point and was swept downstream past my property where I couldn't see her. I have a fence along the river a short distance in the middle pasture near the north pasture to prevent cattle from attempting to cross between the two pastures via the river. The fence was all there with no breaks.

By now I had walked by the area where I had seen the gopher caught in the gopher trap the previous day when I was trying to the jailbreakers back into the north pasture. As I wrote about in the "gopher trap" post: no gopher, no trap. Everything is disappearing on me!!!

Where is my heifer?!! By now I was resigned to her being gone. If she wasn't in the pasture then she was in the river. So much for making any money this year. It wasn't just about the money; she was a good heifer and drowning in the river is not the way to go.

*sigh*

As I walked along the north/middle fence back towards the corral I spotted a break in the fence. The quick repair job I had made the evening before when my heifer originally broke through the fence was re-broken. What?!

I rushed to the corral. Rather than count the cattle I looked for my twelve heifers and their ear tags. There among the herd was heifer 20 wondering why I was making such a fuss over her. I counted the herd and came up with 28. They are all here, safe and sound. She was with the herd all along. I must have miscounted earlier.

Heifer 20 is rather smart. When she wanted to rejoin the herd she knew where to go along the fence and how to break the wire and step/jump over the rest of the fence to do so. And here I thought I only had to keep my eye on heifers 30 and 40.

Well, I am happy she is safe and sound.

The north pasture grass was still higher in spots, and the grass in the corral was plenty high and thick what with all the fertilizing my heifers did the first weeks when they were confined to the corral. I decided to leave the herd in the north pasture one more day. Even if they preferred the grass outside the corral, if they finish off the higher spots they still had the corral grass if they got hungry. Tomorrow. That's when I will rotate the herd into the middle pasture.