Two big bales

The stars aligned and both sets of cattle got big bales today.

First off were the cows.  Pulling another big bale to the north pasture went smooth.  In an hour I was done.  It is so much easier and nicer to do this without snow, rain, mud, wind, etc.

I got another big bale from Tim for the calves.  This bale seemed a touch bigger.  When he placed it in the pickup bed the back half of the bale did not sit on the pickup bed floor.  By the time I got home, as you can see, the bale is almost on the bed's floor.

I thought with the bale wedged between the pickup bed's sides I would have trouble getting the bale out.  But I was able to push it out -- with some effort.

The hardest part of all this is that the calves didn't want to wait for me to push the bale out of the pickup bed.  I was afraid the bale would land on one or more of the calves after I pushed the bale from the pickup bed.  I had to get and use my sorting stick to get the calves to move away from the bale.  Several times, as they kept swarming back to the bale.

Finally they stayed away just long enough for me to push the bale to the ground.

To get the twine off the bale I ended up standing on top of the bale and unwinding the twine from around the bale.  The cattle didn't make it easy when they ate from the bale at the same time.

I made sure to wire up the broken feeder to prevent the calves from crawling into the hay once the bale is eaten down.


This morning when I went out to give the cattle several small bales before getting the big bales, I found two cows fighting.  #40 and #90 were really going at it.  Around and around with each trying to reach and suck from the other's udder.  Typical mean female cow fighting.   The temperature was just below freezing and the ground slippery from frost.  A few times a cow would slip and go down.  Fortunately they quit fighting so they could eat hay.  They ate at opposite ends of the feeder.   I didn't see them fight later as they spent the day in the corral until I let them out later to eat from the big bale.  I did notice #90 hesitate before joining the herd at the big bale.  These dang female cows get a grudge, fight dirty, and won't let it go.