Cows going through fences

The four cows in the yard do what they want to do.  The front yard is getting eaten down but still has grass to eat.  But the grass is taller on the other side of the fence.  Yesterday morning shortly after I got up I heard some mooing.  When I looked outside I saw that three of the cows had broken through the yard fence and were just inside the hayfield.   I was able to get the cows back in the yard relatively quickly.   It wasn't raining at that point but it had rained for about 24 hours. The tall hayfield grass was completely wet.  By the end my pants and shoes and socks were soaked, all the way up my pants inseam.

After getting the cattle back into the corral I nailed the fence boards back on, used a metal t-post to support the two small broken fence posts, and put corral panels along the fence.   Today, after fixing another fence - more on that below - I replaced this fence's two small broken posts with a good wood fence post.   So this fence section is fixed.

After Monday's breakout I kept an eye on the cattle all day.  They all behaved.  I let them stay in the yard overnight.  I planned on letting the cattle into the fruit tree area this morning as the front yard was getting near eaten down.  At 5 am this morning when I got up to use the bathroom I looked and the cattle were laying in the front yard.  At 7:45 am when I got up to check on Daisy I saw the cattle were in the fruit tree area eating grass.  I guess I didn't get up early enough for the cows.

This was a fence section I had planned last Fall on replacing two weak and rotting top to ground posts.  Due to my injury last year not all of the Fall plans got done.  This wasn't a high priority plan.  And I forgot all about it this year.   After so many days in the front yard the cattle figured out the fence weakness.

I spent part of the day fixing the fence and putting in two newer posts.  The old posts were broken off at ground level.  It was a bit of a challenge to dig out the old posts in the ground.

I spent most of the rest of the day removing all the protective barriers and fencing I had in the yard to keep the cattle from eating what they shouldn't eat.  The barrier protecting the caragana trees was messed up.  Somehow the cows got some of the metal clips off the posts and scrunched some of the fencing either from the top or bottom to reach some of the caragana tree branches.

I also have a metal barrier around one of my small black walnut trees.  The cows broke the boards on one side and pushed that side of the barrier in and ate half the tree leaves.

Cows can be such a pain some times.