Major cattle jailbreak

Saturday night Donna and I went to the rodeo at the NW Montana Fair.  I was gone from 6 pm till after 10 pm.  It was dark when I got home.  When I got home I noticed something was wrong.   My bicycle was leaning like a strong wind tipped it.  The broom was laying down.  I checked the patio.  The extra bags of apples were torn and strewn around with many missing.  It appeared as if one or more cattle had gotten out of the hayfield and into the yard.

The headlights from Donna's car showed where the cattle broke through the fence in the front yard.

Now, where are the cattle?!!

They were at my northern neighbor's house.  In their backyard.   Around 8:30 pm the cattle showed up south of their house at their apple tree.  They were eating many apples that had fallen on the ground and the lower apples still in the tree.  The neighbor's back yard is fenced with a chain-link fence so they can let their dogs run free.  The neighbors opened the gate and the cattle went inside, where they remained until I got home.

It was dark with no moon.  One option was to herd the cattle back out to the road then down to either my NE pasture gate or my driveway.  Not an appealing idea, especially in the dark.

I chose the other option.  I cut my fence just outside the neighbor's fence.  I used three temporary corral panels to create a route from the chain-link gate to my fence opening.

I closed all my gates except the one to the corral.   I had my pickup stationed outside the cut fence both for light and for herding.  The major problem with the cattle in the NE pasture is all my hay bales are there.

Buddy ambled out first checking the grass and gate opening.  He turned left and walked to the pickup into the blinding lights.  The other cattle followed.  Donna was driving and I was walking and using my sorting stick to try to get the cattle to turn right.  They walked south past the pickup and then I realized I forgot to close the gate to the fruit tree & garden area.  Keeping an eye on where Buddy was standing I ran over and closed the gate.

Between me and the pickup we turned the cattle towards the corral.  Then they saw the hay bales and ran over there.  We were on it honking and yelling and got the cattle to move on.  A few had 20 seconds to tear into a couple hay bales.

We got the cattle into the corral and I closed the gate.   The barn has a yard light which I had turned on.  Now walk among them to count and recount to make sure all were there.  They were.

The next problem was Beulah's calf.  He appeared to have something stuck in his throat.  He could breathe but was foaming at his mouth and was stretching his neck and trying to cough.  After some debate on what could be done I called the cattle vet.  It was now 11:45 pm.

He said to look for sign of bloating.  This would mean the calf could not belch out gas created by the digestive process.  If no bloating it was up to me whether I wanted to wait and see if the object would work its way down its throat.

Back out to look at the calf.  No signs of bloating.  I had put out some hay south of the barn for the cattle to eat but they decided to lay down and chew their cud.  Beulah's calf walked south of the barn and Beulah followed.  I closed the gate and they were the only cattle south of the barn.

The calf was uncomfortable but did not appear to be in immanent danger. I decided to wait till morning to see if how the calf was doing.  I checked at 6 am.  The calf was the same.  I waited.

At 9 am I fixed the fence.  I replaced the old thin short fence posts with a medium sized taller fence post and re-nailed the fence boards.  I added a temporary wire across the top of a half dozen fence posts.

I got two of my corral panels and blocked Beulah and her calf in the east side of the south corral.  The calf had put his mouth into the water trough but was unable to drink.  By now Beulah's udder was full and she bellowed and bellowed and wanted her calf to drink and drain it.

Then I moved the rest of the cattle from the north corral through the south corral and out to the hayfield.  In the meantime Donna noticed one calf had a very watery eye as if something had poked it.  I'll need to watch that the calf doesn't get an infection and pinkeye and go blind.  Mama's calf has a bad limp with her back right leg.  The hit's keep on coming.

A short time later I saw eight of the calves crowding around where I had fixed the fence.  They had remembered where they had gotten through.  They were checking out my work and the new fence post.

With the cattle out of the corral I moved Beulah and her calf to the loading corral.  I called the vet and made an appointment at the clinic at 11:30 am.

The vet checked out the calf.  He had a fever of 103.9 degrees.  High.  The vet put his arm down the calf's throat as far as he could reach.  Nothing blocking the airway.  He put a metal tube in the calf's throat and threaded a plastic hose. The vet believed the hose came up against a small object at the base of the throat and the entrance to the stomach.  He pushed it into the stomach.  I slowly pumped water down the calf's throat.  No water came back up as if an object were blocking passage.

A shot for pain and an antibiotic shot and we waited.  The calf perked up quickly and soon began to occasionally swallow.  No more foaming at the mouth.

I took the calf home and when he was reunited with his mother he immediately began to drink from her to the relief of everyone.  I am leaving Beulah and her calf in the corral for 24 hours to keep an eye on them.  Also, because a few days ago Beulah developed a limp with her left front leg.  One thing after another.  So far the calf seems to have recovered.   I noticed earlier in the afternoon he was head butting Beulah's udder to get her to lower milk into her udder.  But I think there was no milk at the time as the calf had drained her dry and she had not produced enough milk in the short time since what was drained.

What was blocking the calf's throat?  I am not positive but I am fairly sure it was an apple that was too large for the calf to eat.  This is my smallest calf.  I have a feeling that in the feeding frenzy the calf may have been bumped and was unable to spit the apple out before swallowing.  I had observed the calf a few days ago attempt to eat an apple too big for its mouth.  It spit the apple back out.  At that time only one other calf was next to him and he had time to find an apple the appropriate size for him.

The emergency vet visit cost me $186.


When the cattle were in the neighbor's backyard last night they bent out part of the east side of the fence to the concern of the neighbors.  Once the cattle were taken care of I worked on fixing the fence.  Daisy came and kept me company as I worked.  I was able to bend the fence and poles straight again to the satisfaction of the neighbors.

Then I fixed my cut fence.  With the wires cut I also took the opportunity to move the barb wires for a half dozen fence posts from the outside of the posts to the inside.  This is very old fence made back when the neighboring property was a field and not a house lot.  Having the wires inside will reduce the chance of the cattle pushing out the staples and breaking the wires and getting out of the pasture.

So.  I didn't get any of my planned tasks done today was all day was spent recovering from the cattle's jailbreak.

In the morning, with the light, I checked for the damage in the yard.  It could have been worse.  Other than the apples, bicycle and broom, most stuff was not touched.  My trees and shrubs still had leaves  An exception was my 'bicycle cat' that moves when the wind blows.  The cattle broke it.

It appears that after eating half my bagged apples the cattle had decided to go on a road trip and visit the neighbors even through there were plenty of young tender grass to eat in my lawn.   What a mess.