Cattle jailbreak into the hayfield

Yesterday the cattle made a jailbreak into the hayfield.  They have plenty of good green grass in the south pasture, but being cattle, they want more.

Yesterday around 6 pm, as I walked out of the house to go do some more work, I looked over towards the cattle.  Some didn't look right.  They looked to be on the hayfield side of the south pasture fence.  Yup.  They were.

The cattle must have just broken through the gate as less than half of the cows and calves were in the hayfield and weren't too far from the gate.  I went out, moved the leaning gate to be now open, and started herding the cattle back to the pasture.  I also had to deal with the rest of the cattle in the south pasture who saw our activity and came running over to join in.   I got all but one cow and two calves back into the south pasture.   The cow ran past the gate and not through.  The two calves split going in each direction away from the gate.  More effort and I got one calf back into the south pasture.

The cow was now down near the NE pasture gate.  I went down but she ran onwards.  Then past the middle pasture gate.  She headed towards the north pasture and hayfield gate.  That gate was open.   But then so were the gates to the NE pasture and the corral gates into the yard.  I didn't want this cow to go into the north pasture.  I got the cow to head back.  At the middle pasture gate, after a few turn arounds I got the cow into the middle pasture.

Now the final calf.  He didn't want to be herded and we ended up all the way to the south, south pasture and hayfield gate.  Before I could open the gate he ran back north.  I finally got him through the middle pasture gate after a few turn arounds where he went past the gate.

The cow and calf - someone else's calf - were fine in the middle pasture. Of course the rest of the cattle saw these two in the middle pasture and they ran to the middle pasture fence and the gate to the middle from south pasture.  They stood and mooed and watched the cow and calf.  Knock it off. Be quiet.

Now time for me to fix the leaning south pasture gate.

The gate on the left side was the problem.

I have the lag bolts - top down and bottom up - so the cattle can't lift the gate off the lag bolts.  The bottom part of the gate is fixed and the top has an adjustable hinge so that a person can have lag bolts be up and down.  Somehow the hinge slipped down enough so with pressure on the gate the gate would pop out of the lag bolt.  I got a wrench and readjusted the hinge to move it up.   I also had some wire and wrapped it around the lag bot and hinge so I shouldn't have the hinge slip in the future years.

All this cattle herding and gate fixing used up time.  The work I planned on finishing yesterday didn't get finished even though I was doing the work up 11 pm until it was too dark to continue working.  Today I got it done finally.