My girls likes me

The cattle (my girls as they are all heifers) are settling in. Evan delivered them Friday afternoon on a beautiful sunny day. The cattle were happy to get out of the stock trailer and quickly got to work eating the green grass in the corral.


In the morning before the cattle arrived I did last minute chores to prepare for the cattle. I scrubbed and cleaned their water trough and filled it. I also nailed some odds and ends of small wire fence pieces to part of my corral fence on the east side. I covered part of the corral fence to prevent the cattle from sticking their head through to eat the grass in the yard. In the past I've seen some cattle twist their head to get it through the corral fence and I don't want to chance them pushing and breaking the corral fence. The fence is solid... but I've seen crazy things happen with cattle.

Here is a view of several cattle and the wire I added to the corral fence.


The first day the cattle were jumpy at any little sound - even cars driving by on the road in the distance - but they have become accustomed to their new home and are more relaxed now. Tonight one of them got in a squirrelly mood and began running around the corral and got the others worked up and soon the whole herd were running in circles around the barn. I had to go out and talk to them to get them to finally stop. But the goofy one then wanted to pick fights with other cattle. Finally she got it out of her system.

The corral grass is now eaten down short - golf putting green quality except for the cow pies.

I also feed the cattle a hay bale or two several times a day. They have quickly warmed up to me. I am already at the stage where they don't move much when I walk by them - especially when I am carrying hay. And they come over to check out what I am doing. Yesterday I improved a gate and they all came over to watch me work. All 14 were lined up along the fence intently watching me. I had to toss them some fresh hay to leave me alone.

I had Dan's two steers for a few hours until Dan could come over to pick them up. One could tell they were not part of the group. One went off to another part of the corral to be alone and sat down. The other one stayed with the group as they walked around checking out their new home, but he would bellow his displeasure every often. A few times he would butt heads with one of my heifers. My heifers gave as good as they got and pushed him back a number of times.


My heifers are very calm and mellow and seem to be a good group. However I can pick out personalities already. The shy ones and the bold ones and the intelligent ones. The intelligent ones are the ones to watch as after they figure out something they can be trouble. They are the ones that are very curious as to what is inside the barn. When getting a hay bale I have to make sure the barn door is closed as I fluff the hay bale out in their feeder - else I will have a heifer inside the barn.

These cattle are like ninjas. They can move fast and they move quietly. It is surprising considering their large size. One second they are here and the next I know they are over there.

All the cattle have ear tags and I will keep them and not go through the trouble of giving the cattle new tags. Even though they are from the same herd the tags are colored yellow, blue, green, orange and one is pink. I've already started calling the one with the pink tag "Pink". In time I'll see if she has a strong personality like the pop music star "Pink".