Big bale for calves

The calves almost finished another hay bale.  Rather than wait for morning I put the rest of the hay in their wooden feeder then got them another big bale late this afternoon.

Previously I had hauled the bales in on my pickup (by the way, today I received and installed the new tailgate latch), but now that I have all my bales I drug one into the corral.

I couldn't drag the bale next to the fence where I had the previous three bales, but that's ok, that area is getting built up with leftover hay, mud and manure.  So I had to position the bale out away from the fence.

The challenge: getting the bale in the calves part of the corral and the feeder around it without the calves harrassing me.

I pulled the bale into the other part of the corral, then prepared the metal feeder for moving.  That was a mistake as three calves crowded inside the feeder to eat the leftover hay I couldn't move to the wooden feeder.  The other three calves were at the gate looking at the bale behind my pickup.

Of course Buddy came over to watch the proceedings.  When Rose backed up against the fence Buddy took a sniff to see if Rose was ready for some "Buddy love".  She's not.

I faked out the calves.  I opened the gate and let them into the part of the corral with the hay bale.  Then I pulled the bale through the gate, jumped out of the pickup and ran over and closed the gate while the calves stood there dumbfounded.

*whew*

I now had time to cut the twine off the bale and pull the feeder around the bale and then wire the feeder shut so the calves won't be able to walk on the hay.

While I did this the calves ran around the other part of the corral checking everything out.  At one point as they ran along the west side of the fence Buddy got excited on his side of the fence.  But the calves ran to another part of the corral and Buddy settled down.

My poor feeder

With the recent warmer weather some of the cattle are rubbing because they itch.  On Rose you can see how the cattle can get carried away.