Sunday, June 19, 2022

Cattle into neighbor's field

This afternoon I moved the cattle from the middle pasture over and into the neighbor's field.  The neighbor has stuff in their field, but they also want the grass eaten down.

Still in my middle pasture.



Maria and her calf were elsewhere in the middle pasture as the calf was sleeping.  I had to herd them to join the rest of the cattle.



Here you can see the cattle flattened the pile of dirt I had dug out from around this tree stump in the middle pasture.



In the neighbor's field the cattle had to check the trees out.  Here the bull is rubbing against the dirt of a tree that had blown over.



These two replacement heifers decided to fight.  And fight. And fight.    One would push the other heifer backwards.  Then that heifer would gain her footing and push the other heifer backwards or to the side.  One time a heifer was pushed into the tree next to her in this photo.

It was hard to break them up from fighting as I didn't want to get pushed into a tree accidentally.  Once the heifers got out of the trees I tried to get them to stop fighting.  They did, but then would walk side by side.  It was like a bull courting a cow for breeding.  So I worked more on trying to get them walk away from each other.  They separated but the one wanted to come back.  I ran after it shouting and waving my arms.  I had to go in a circle as the heifer tried to circle around me to get back to the other heifer.  But I got them apart.  I didn't see them next to each other or fighting when I checked on them later in the day.



This is one of the heifers that fought.  This was after I got her away from the other heifer.



One of the fighting heifers had something coming out her rear. (I noticed this before she had started to fight.)   It looked like either after-birth, or like the one cow I had whose placenta prematurely detached before her calf was born.   But this calf wasn't pregnant, it was one of my replacement heifers.  Later I remembered this was the heifer who I saw was in heat and with the bull with back on December 20.  Six months ago.  I had separated them back them.  But maybe not soon enough?

So maybe this heifer is pregnant.  Now it could be that either she miscarried her calf and this is some after-birth as she was 6 months pregnant, or her placenta prematurely detached.  I looked around for a dead calf but didn't find one.

I noticed this heifer tends not to hang around the other cattle as they roam around the field to eat.  The heifer tends to go and lay by herself.  I'll have to keep an eye on her and maybe talk with the cattle vet tomorrow.

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