As you can see, some cattle were already wanting to eat grass as earlier they put their head under a gate in order to reach grass on the other side.
When I was still feeding hay to the cattle I would put out a hay pile for the calves to eat. That is if some of the cows didn't take over the pile from the calves.
Some calves preferred to lay on the hay.
Some of the calves preferred to eat like the grownup cattle and eat from the feeder.
Some of the calves liked to eat from the pickup's back bumper.
When I let the cattle out to the NE pasture I also let Mama cow and her calf, and Toby the bull join the herd on grass. As you can see Toby immediately got to business and started courting a cow in heat.
I kept four cows to eat the grass in my yard. I kept Speckles and her calves, Maria who still has to calf one day, and two cows and their calves that I planned on selling sooner than later. These were the two cows I has planned on selling as they were replaced by the heifers last Fall. I only wanted some cows in the yard and not the entire herd. The entire herd would be too much to watch that they didn't cause mayhem while in the yard.
Initially I kept the four cows and their calves in the back half of the yard. As you can see after a few days the four cows broke the fence and got into the hayfield temporarily before I herded them back into the yard and corral. I placed extra gates against this section of fence to prevent them from doing this again. When I let the cows out of the corral they immediately went to where they had broken through the fence and were disappointed they couldn't get back into the alfalfa hayfield.
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