At the start of the drain field the grass as almost as tall as the calves.
Learning from the previous temporary corral, I placed steel T posts outside of each panel "loop" instead of one post in the center of the panel. I had no problems with heifers getting their head stuck even though they did put their head under the rest of the panels to reach grass on the other side.
For the fence with the yard I added temporary boards. In the past the old top boards were broken by livestock leaning over the fence (usually by horses).
For one section of fence that have boards vertical instead of horizontal I tested the fence and it seemed solid.
Wrong.
All day the cattle behaved. I decided to let them stay here overnight instead of herding them back into the corral. Big mistake.
After dark I thought I heard cattle walking in the yard but put it down to hearing cattle along the fence with the yard. A bit later I thought I heard a car honk on the road. I put that down to deer. But a few minutes later I turned the outside light on and looked outside to see some cattle walking in the driveway!
I ran to close the gate at the road A pickup stopped to tell me they saw one of the cattle on the road. They saw it run back towards my driveway but weren't sure if it turned into my driveway or ran down the road. It is hard to see a black cow in the dark, especially when there was no moon.
After I closed the gate I ran to open the corral gate. Once that was open I found the cattle had gathered near the driveway gate. I herded them to the corral. They ran around the house and stopped. I caught up to them and started to herd them again. Rose, another independent calf from Momma like Baby was, went left and then towards me when the herd went right. Momma was concerned. And I was concerned about Momma getting over protective and I stepped aside to let them pass. Once the herd was back towards the corral gate I went back and herded Momma and Rose.
Did Momma and Rose go rejoin the cattle? No, they went back into the temporary corral over the broken fence. I had Tammy watch that they didn't come back out while I got the rest of the cattle into the corral. Then I got Momma and Rose from the temporary corral back into the corral.
*whew*
In the dark it was hard to see the black cattle. Tammy and I looked around and discovered one heifer hiding among the logs waiting to be split. I herded her into the corral.
The people in the pickup said they drove down the road but didn't see any cattle. The cattle were still a little agitated so I didn't want to go in the corral to count heads. But my flashlight wasn't strong enough to see the cattle from the fence. Tammy's smartphone had a stronger light than my flashlight. I had to enter the corral. I mainly stood in the empty wooden feeder and did a head count. All cattle and calves were in the corral and were calming down.
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| The broken fence after I flipped it back into the temporary corral |
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| My 'temporary' fix until I can rebuild all of this fence. |
Friday afternoon I let the cattle back into the temporary corral to finish eating the grass. After almost 18 hours later they immediately headed to where they broke the fence and they were disappointed to find it fixed.
This doesn't show well how much the grass was eaten down since the taller grass was at the far end, but in less than a day the grass was mostly eaten.
Here is a short video of the calves running around the temporary corral just after they entered it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kAe5aAeGfUg&feature=youtu.be
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