I got more girls

I got more cattle. The guy who has pastured some of his cattle at my place ran into financial problems this year and won't be renting pasture as he has to sell his cattle to raise money. I bought six of his heifers to help him out and to make my herd size twenty in total. I can handle that many and still cut my hayfield for hay. And he has excellent cattle. They are already getting sleek and have shed most of their winter coat.

He brought the heifers over this morning. My cattle were sitting around the loafing shed relaxing but when he came with the heifers my cattle got all excited. It didn't help that his heifers were mooing from the stock trailer as they entered the corral.

He had to drive through the corral to the north pasture to turn around and then reenter the corral. I handled the gates. Usually I don't have a problem with this as the cattle usually are wary of the trailer and keep their distance as they watch. This time the herd ran after the trailer and I had to cut them off and quickly shut the gate.

When the new heifers were released into the corral everyone ran around to get to know one another as the new heifers ran around to check out their new home.

My cattle don't seem to be to pleased with these new interlopers. My cattle were a tight cohesive herd. A few cattle I hadn't noticed in the past are getting my attention as they are 'fighting' with some of the new cattle. Heifer 513 especially seems to have it in for one of the new heifers and follows and harasses her all around the corral. Usually tossing out hay gets their mind off fighting/socializing but 513 still focuses on this other heifer and I have to go over to separate them and get 513 distracted onto eating hay.

I think in a few days they will settle down. But as they are females this may take longer than usual. In the past I've noticed my heifers hold grudges far longer than the steers do.

There also seems to be a competition over the food. I have a third more cattle and they seem to be eating twice as much. They still have hay in their feeder but whenever I put out fresh hay there is a frenzy over it and I notice it is eaten much quicker than before. I barely had enough hay before these new cattle and now I need to get more hay to get me through the end of the month.

Dan still has hay left and he said he can sell me a round bale. Then this afternoon I ran across my neighbor Debbie while at the bank. She is the one whose horses were killed by the mountain lion last Fall. They have some hay left from last year. It may be okay for cattle. They never covered the hay and it has gotten rained and snowed on. They also have a round bale feeder I can borrow to feed my cattle. My two wooden feeders can handle my 20 cattle but it gets crowded.

Debbie also told me she thought she saw another mountain lion in their yard a few nights ago when she had gotten up in the middle of the night. She didn't see the entire animal as it walked among their vehicles but what she did see had the shape of a lion and moved cat like.

My new heifers weigh an average of 771 lbs so all my cattle tend to be large, and with a herd size of twenty, I am not too concerned about a mountain lion. A neighbor's dog had visited me last week and one heifer was not afraid of the dog at all.

Dan saw my cattle and this was the first he had seen them since I got them at the livestock auction. As I see them every day I can't tell if they are gaining weight but he said he can see that they are.

As you can see in the second photo one heifer (and surprisingly it is not 'Notch') had put her front legs in the small feeder next to the barn. *sigh*

Thursday was a mixed weather day. Rain and sun and rain and sun, etc. All these three photos were taken within 20 minutes of one another.