Cattle headaches

On Saturday the cattle broke the round metal feeder again.  The hay bale was almost gone and Beulah pushed to reach the last of the hay in the middle and broke the feeder.  The feeder is tough but it is showing its age.  And Beulah is big and strong.   Wyatt welded it for me with his new welder.  I'm gonna have to keep an eye out for another feeder this summer.

When I returned from Wyatt's house I only saw Beulah and her calf in the corral.  Momma and Rose were in the loading corral but the rest of the herd was gone.  I looked around and the gates were closed and the temporary corral panels were all standing.  Then I saw the open barn door.   Earlier when I saw the broken feeder I got the hay fork from the barn.  I forgot to close the barn door all the way shut.  One of the cattle must have gotten her head inside the opening and pushed the heavy barn door sideways to open it.

The barn was crowded inside with cattle and it was a mess.   The cattle had pulled some of the hay bales down and broke them and spread them around the barn floor. And crapped on the floor and hay.  A major mess.  I yelled at the cattle to get out and they did.   After I closed the door and left, they came and hung around outside the door trying to figure out how to get back inside until I got the metal feeder put back together and a new bale in it.

Tonight I worked on the hay in the loading corral with Momma and Rose.  I had a small large bale in there for them to eat.  I hadn't planned on them being in there so long.  When the bale got smaller Momma started to spread the hay around. Then she and Rose stood on it.  Of course Momma preferred to eat the hay not spread about or crapped on.  I don't have extra hay to waste.

Momma seems calmer and doesn't charge me when I stand just outside the fence.  Still I don't trust her.  So I enticed her and Rose into another part of the loading corral and closed the gate.  I got an extra water trough, placed it in the loading corral and put some of the good hay in there.  The rest of the hay I threw outside the loading corral where no cattle can reach it and I'll feed it to Momma as needed.

The rest of the cattle have hay but they stood outside the other part of the loading corral by Momma and Rose and bellowed their insistence on joining Momma and Rose.  When I finished with the hay and water trough and let Momma and Rose back to the hay the cattle then stood outside the gate and bellowed and complained at not being allowed to the water trough and hay.  As I said they have plenty of hay in the metal feeder so I was annoyed at their complaining that "the grass was greener on the other side".