Calves and fence work

The calves are a little calmer.  At least one calf lost her voice.  She opens her mouth and no sound comes out.  The rest are hoarse.  They aren't mooing non-stop anymore.

In the morning everyone was relaxing in the warm sun to a cool/cold 30 degree start to the morning.  The mothers are laying just outside the corral.

With the extra panels from my weed hay corral downsize I now had enough corral panels to stretch across Calvin's pasture.  With my pasture grass short, and my inability (reluctance) to pasture the cattle in my hayfield this year, I decided to put in the effort to pasture the cattle for a little while in Calvin's pasture.  It is some effort as I have to set up 20 corral panels to block the cattle from getting into his extra vehicles, buildings, and stuff in the east part of his pasture.  Most years I don't bother.

Since the grass is dry and short where I put the line of corral panels I shouldn't have a problem with the cattle pushing against the panels.  But these are my cattle, and I have Maria, so I pounded in steel fence posts to reinforce the corral panels.

The cows came running when I opened the gate and called them.  Toby the bull took his time sauntering over.  The calves were not happy their mothers were now farther away.


With the cattle in the north pasture, and now also Calvin's pasture, I am taking time to work a little on the south fence. The cattle had been reaching through the fence to try to eat from the hayfield.  The barb wires held and did not break.  But all that irrigating earlier made the ground soft and while the wires didn't break, the fence posts were stressed.  The one gate has a slide bolt to lock the gate closed.  The bolt slid into the end post.  Over the Summer the post leaned further from the gate until I had to put a chain around the gate and post to hold the gate closed.

I replaced the end posts with railroad ties as end posts.  Something more substantial and less likely to lean in the future.

You can see my fence evolution over the years.  From wires "x"ing the end posts along with a few two by fours, to now just nailing up some boards less than 8 feet long from my board pile.

I am working on another gate in the south pasture.  Here is tonight's sunset as I worked.