What?!
How did they get in there? All the corral panels and fences were intact. All gates were closed. How?
A closer look and I found that the loading corral gate was not chained. The gate was closed but the chain that ran through the eye bolt and back to the gate was hanging loose from the gate. The cattle somehow unchained the gate, got into the loading corral, then closed the gate behind them. Kind of like in the movies and TV shows were the person gets untied or out of handcuffs, the bad guys return so the person pretends to be still handcuffed or tied so as not to attract suspicion. Pretty clever cattle.
I herded the cattle out. When doing so I noticed the bull calf was not among them. He had slipped out when the other cattle got in and he was at the metal hay feeder eating hay. The cattle who gotten into the loading corral had been eating the hay bale in the loading corral.
For each of them I guess the hay over there is better than the hay over here.
*sigh*
I herded the bull calf back into the loading corral. He was harder to herd than the other cattle as he didn't want to go in and be alone again.
I think what happened with the gate is that I hooked the chain back to the gate but I forgot the extra step of slipping the end of the chain through the hole in the gate after hooking it. The cattle lifted the chain until it unhooked from the gate. Then they pushed on the gate until the chain slipped all of the way out of the eye bolt. Who says cattle are dumb?
In the two photos below this is a different gate without an eye bolt in the post but the gate and chain are the same concept. Photo 1 is how I think I had the other gate. Photo 2 is how I should have fixed the gate.
If Momma doesn't have her calf soon I think her udder will pop. Man, it is swollen.
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