Hay bale set out for the cattle

An odd year.  This afternoon I put out one of last year's hay bales for the cattle.  The grass in the pastures is getting short.   Usually the grass lasts until late October or November.  I still have grass in the hayfield but I don't want to let the cattle into the hayfield until days or a week after we have a good freeze.  That way the alfalfa shouldn't cause the cattle to bloat.

Normally I feed hay to the cattle in the north and middle pastures.   I rotate back and forth as the cattle wouldn't be in the pasture getting the hay bale as I unload the bale.  Since it is nowhere near Winter I decided to put the feeder and bales in the south and middle pastures.  A different area to spread the hay leftovers and manure.   That meant moving the feeder from the north pasture to the south pasture.  I was able to do that as the cattle were elsewhere in the middle pasture.  Then when it came to moving the hay bale the cattle were now at the middle/north pasture gate blocking my way.

Fortunately I have two middle/north pasture gates, and I drove the tractor to the west end gate while the cattle remained at the east end gate.

Here is the hay bale in the south pasture. With all the calves around I have more animals than can eat at the feeder at the same time, which is what the cattle want to do when they initially get hay in a feeder.  So I also took some of the hay from the bale and made 10 small piles around the feeder.

When it came to move the salt block to the south pasture I found the salt feeder in the south pasture like this.  No salt block in the feeder and the cattle decided to abuse the feeder.  The two metal posts are there so the feeder doesn't get tipped over.  That didn't stop it from getting lifted up and over.  And one of the legs broken.  I had to fix the feeder and put it back between the metal posts before putting a salt block in it.

The other problem was the south/middle pasture gate.  The past few weeks I have left the south/middle pasture gate open so the cattle can move between the two pastures.  The railroad tie has an eye bolt that I can put the gate's chain through to hold the gate in place.  This eye hook is a little loose but held in place.  Well... the cattle apparently don't ever want me to hook the gate closed in the future.  The eye hook is now missing. The cattle pulled the hook out of the railroad tie.  I looked all around on the ground and I can't find the eye hook.  The eye hook is large enough the cattle shouldn't have swallowed it.  But where did the hook go?

I got an extra chain and added it to the gate's chain so the gate's chain would be long enough to wrap around the railroad tie.  This will work for now.  Either I find the eye hook, or more likely, have to buy a new one.

All this took time. I have other things to do. I am trying to get all the pastures sprayed to kill the weeds.  Not as much sprayed today.

Hayfield gate down

When I started to cut my hay on Monday I moved the cattle from the neighbor's field to my middle pasture. This was done using the corner gate.  Once that was done I started cutting hay.  When I drove by the other gate to the neighbor's field I saw that gate was down.

The cattle once again messed with a gate.  The top lag bolt faces down to hold the gate in place. But the cattle somehow worked the gate to loosen the lag bolt and for the bolt to turn slightly sideways.  Down went the gate.  At least this time the gate was partially down and the cattle couldn't walk over the gate to get into the hayfield.

Today I fixed the gate.  Yesterday I had bought a new slightly larger lag bolt.  It is more snug in the railroad tie fence post.  Hopefully this lag bolt lasts longer than when I last rebuilt the fence and gate back in June 2019.

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.

Cattle moving a gate in the corral

This morning I found a gate moved a distance in the corral.   This is the second time the cattle moved this gate.   The first time a few days ago the gate was moved to another location in the corral.  How the cattle can move this gate is a mystery.

The red arrow shows where the gate was before.  I had it leaning against the fence there.  I never got around to putting the gate outside the corral when I no longer needed it in the corral. This morning I put the gate outside the corral.

The blue arrow points to a couple of plastic salt lick buckets.  They are now empty.  I had them stacked where the blue arrow points to the right.  To the left you can barely see the buckets.  I guess the cattle got bored and decided to push the buckets around the corral.  Kind-of like the recent video of the bull and the large ball.

Gate down

Yesterday I saw something odd out on the hayfield / south pasture fence.  The area around the gate looked odd.  I got out my binoculars and saw that half of the gate was down.  I thought I had installed the gates so this wouldn't happen.  Nothing like this happened over the years.

I have lag bolts up and down.  So the gate wasn't lifted off the bolts.  I guess the hinge on the top part of the gate must have slipped down.  How?  Who Knows?  No cattle are in the south pasture.

I put the gate back on the bolts and readjusted and tightened the hinge.  The gate should stay in place.

New gate installed

The daylight is getting shorter and the temperatures are getting colder, and a little more rain happening every now and then. Less is getting done by me, and projects that would take a day now takes multiple days as I do more than one thing each day.

This project is now old, but before election day I put a new gate into a fence.  Last month when Kelly came by to check things out before hunting season opened, we walked along the fence near where he hunts.  In the lower area near the river in addition to the barb wire fence years ago I had attached some wire sections to make the fence higher.  At that time it was to use up some of these wire sections.  But also make it so the deer didn't jump across the fence.  There was a section where two wire sections meet that were leaning.   Kelly asked that when hunting season opened, since the cattle wouldn't be in this pasture, if he could move these two pieces apart so it would be another area where the deer could cross.  Sure.

Then in the weeks since that visit an extra gate that I have caught my eye.  I should put that gate in the fence near that area.  Kelly wouldn't have to separate two wire fence sections and the gate would provide another crossing point if I ever need to herd cattle back into the pasture if they had made an escape.

I found a couple of not-so-perfect railroad ties to use as posts.  I also found I had two lag bolts.  These were larger than normal lag bolts.   I never could use them in my traditional gates as the bolts were too large. On this gate's hinges I could drill the hinge holes to be a little larger.  And I did.

The next step was to make it so the cattle can't lift the gate off the bolts.  Normally the top hinge is slidable so one can have the top bolt facing downward to hold the gate in place.  But these hinges don't move up and down.  Both bolts would have to face up.  To prevent the gate from being lifted off the bolts, I drilled a hole in each of the hinges.  I would put a nail or wire through the hole to hold the gate in place.

Easier said than done. My drill bits this size were not so sharp and the bolt was very hard solid metal.  I broke all three bits in drilling the first hole.  And it took me over an hour.  To drill the second bolt I went to my neighbor Curtis to ask for advice how to do this better.  He has a drill press, and he drilled a hole in the second bolt in less than a minute.  Gee.  I wish I asked him sooner about this.

Everything was ready.  Now to find the time to do this.  First I needed to finish painting the barn, and other projects.  Then the weather slowed things down.  The day I planned on installing the gate was the day, or day after, hunting season started.  Kelly came by to open the fence liked we had talked about.  I told him of my new gate plan.  He had time so he and I installed the posts and the gate.

I hadn't readied everything and my electric drill hadn't been charged much.  The drill didn't have power to drill a small hole so I could start screwing the lag bolt into the railroad tie.  We ended using a screwdriver and a drill bit to make a starter hole. The lag bolt still didn't want to cut into the railroad tie and screw in.  We used a hammer and sledgehammer to pound the bolts in further - several times - before the lag bolts would then take and screw the rest of the way into the ties.

I'm not used to working with other people on my projects. I got talking and distracted and ended up doing what I normally do.  I made the hole for the top lag bolt at the top of the hinge and not the bottom.  How can I get the gate on both lag bolts?  I couldn't make a new hole as it would be right next to the current hole and would not stay.

Trial and error.  I pounded the top bolt up a little and the bottom bolt down a little.  I tried turning the bolts a little sideways and not straight down.  The gate still would not quite fit onto the bolts. In the above photo you can see the hinge has two spots the bolt goes through.  I pounded the two spots to be closer together.  Almost, almost - not quite.  So close.  I pounded one on of the holes to make it a touch wider and then pounded the hinge so the bolt would slip through the hinge.  Finally - done.  I hope I don't ever have to take this hinge off the railroad tie.  How that would done - who knows!

Here is the fence section I am talking about.

Where the gate will be installed.

The new gate installed.

An accidental photo of my shoes as I worked.

Replaced a railroad tie

I replaced a railroad tie to fix a gate between me and the neighbor to my south.  When the cattle returned from that field earlier this year they bumped against the railroad tie as they crowded through the gate.  The railroad tie was old and decaying.  It now had a 'wobble'.  I plan on letting the cattle into that pasture soon.  So time to fix the railroad tie and gate.

Since the railroad ties are 8 1/2 ft or longer I initially thought I may just be able to reuse the railroad tie as a shorter fence post.  But I found that was not possible as the tie was now too short. Why the tie had a 'wobble' was that the tie broke off at ground level.  I got another one of my railroad ties from my pile.

Slowing me down was removing the railroad in the ground.  The deeper I went the more solid the tie was.  The tie was 30 inches in the ground.  From 20 to 30 inches deep the tie was solid.  I had to get a crowbar to help me work the tie out of the ground as I didn't want to dig a large hole around the tie.

The bottom of the bad railroad tie

We had a little rain yesterday I had to work around.  And since this project was more work than expected, meant it took me some time yesterday and some time today.   But the tie and gate are now fixed and most likely tomorrow I will let the cattle into the neighbor's field.  Each day I worked on the tie the cattle came and then stood nearby mooing at me to hurry up and let them into the neighbor's field.

Looking into the neighbor's field.

Looking into my field.   The 'new' tie was not as wide.  So I had to do a little work to be able to attach the boards across to the railroad tie.  In the right photo you can see how I added small boards to the railroad tie so the side boards could reach.

Overall look to the neighbor's field from my hayfield.

A side view of the cattle in the south pasture wanting me to let them in the neighbor's field.

Last night this was the sunset as I worked on this project.

Corral double gate

Today, the second time in a week, I discovered the cattle had been trying to open the double gates between the corral and the NE pasture.  Why?  There is just snow on the other side of the gates.  The bar is on the other side of the gates, yet the cattle find a way to slide the bar.   If you look lower you see I also have a short chain wrapped around the gates.  A backup way to secure the gates.

Salt feeder wired. Railroad ties.

Today I wired the salt feeder to the metal posts next to it.   This should hold the feeder in place when Haynes 'plays' with it.  I wired in place the salt feeder in the middle pasture last year, and so far it has held the feeder in place.

The tree the salt feeder sits under.

Then I looked out to the metal feeder in the north pasture.  Of course Haynes moved it again since last night.  Yesterday the feeder was west of and next to a band of trees near the river.  Today the feeder is east of the band of trees. Haynes got the feeder through the band of trees.  Is Haynes now trying to push the feeder to the corral?  He got the feeder hung up when he ended up pushing the feeder into the north and middle pasture fence.

Later I loaded some railroad ties and took them out to the middle and south pasture fence.  My goal is to put a gate in the fence closer to the river.  I also have a walk-though gate near the middle part of the fence.  Last year I left that gate open for a while so the cattle could walk back and forth between the south and middle pastures instead of them walking the river.   Well, Haynes.  This walk-though gate was old and the railroad tie I had used to hold the gate was old and weak.  Haynes push on the gate and tie and made it lean.  I straightened the railroad tie after I closed the gate, but I should replace it.

The ground is frozen now so I won't be putting the railroad ties in the ground now.  But it is nice to prepare and get ready for when I can put the ties in the ground in the Spring.  It is easier for me to get to a project if everything is ready.  Otherwise something can come up and a project gets delayed longer.

The boards are because I like to use two railroad ties and nail boards to them to make them a larger unit. This help stop the ties from leaning due to tension from the barb wire fence.  Two posts are better than one.

Haynes with another gate

Yesterday after I had washed the stock trailer I noticed the gate between the hayfield and the south pasture was open.  No big deal as right now the cattle go between the two if they want.  Still, I don't like gates open when they don't have to be open.  So I went out to close the gate.

I thought I had forgot to wrap the chain around the gate handle and the cattle may have slid the gate handle to open the gate.  No, that didn't happen as the chain was wrapped around the handle.  The other thing is that the railroad tie post the handle is slid into to close the gate has over the years started to lean away from the gate.  The fence wire pulls on the post.  A year or so ago I added a 2 by 4 to the post so the gate handle would have enough to slide into.   The post continued to lean away and it appears - Haynes most likely - pushed on the post and popped out the gate handle.  I was able to close the gate.

But... its time to fix the leaning post.  I got the tractor to push against the two posts to straighten them.  The fence wire wanted to hold the posts back.  So I unhooked the wires for now.

Meanwhile, the cattle who were at the opposite side of the hayfield saw what I was doing.  As they were done eating for now and bored came over to check out what was going on.  So I had to walked around them to do my work.  Then Haynes came.  He decided to rub his neck and back against the tractor's load arm.  Haynes is good to me. But he is a bull.  So I had to keep my eye on him as I moved around.  He may want to only play, but he is strong.

I got the posts straight.  I decided to come back today to re-hook up the fence wire.  I also left the gate open as some cattle were in the hayfield side; some cattle were in the pasture side; and some standing in the way of the gate.  They all wanted to check everything out.

Here is a 24 second video of Haynes rubbing against my tractor.   https://youtu.be/OOwX6bi3o10

Today I came out to re-hook the fence wires.  I re-hooked them.  I also discovered the gate was down.   Haynes?!!! 

The top lag bolt hinge pin was turned.

I went home to get a wrench to loosen the hinge on the gate.  To keep the gate from being popped off, I have one lag bolt hinge pin facing up on the bottom and the other lag bolt hinge pin on top facing down.  To get the gate to fit I move the top hinge down then up against the lag bolt hinge pin as the lag bolt hinge pins are not movable.

Then I noticed this type of hinge.   Two pieces, not one.  Why the hinge popped off the lag bolt hinge pin is that the end of the hinge was bent more open.  Haynes?!  I had to walk home to get a sledgehammer so I could beat and bend the hinge end pieces back to be close to one another.  Below is the result.

This old railroad rail - that formerly was a fence post in a fence I had rebuilt years ago - was no longer leaning against this railroad tie to keep it from leaning.  Most likely Haynes or a cow rubbed against the rail and knocked it over.  I put it back in place.

Once again another unexpected fence / gate project to fix.  My friend Mark wrote me that I need to write down a "to-do" list.  No, I don't have a written "to-do" list.  I have a "to-do" list in my head as every day or so the cattle alter the "to-do" list.  It saves me from having to re-write my "to-do" list.

Loading corral gate replaced

Today I finished the work to replace the loading corral's side gate. I planned to replace this wooden gate for a few years now but I would get sidetracked and then forget.   The wooden gate worked, but over the years one post started to lean a little so the sliding catch would be hard to slide into the post to close/lock the gate.  And the gate's hinges were getting loose and the gate was starting to sag on one end.  I thought this gate was what I had bought when I got the wooden panels at an auction.  But when I read my original blog post when I installed this gate, it said I had made the gate.  And another reason to replace this gate, the cattle now have figured out how to slide the catch and then they open the gate.

The hinges.

I had rebuilt this part of the loading corral back in 2008.  Here are a couple posts about it.

https://tallpinesranch.blogspot.com/2008/12/before-snow-flies-and-ground-freezes.html

https://tallpinesranch.blogspot.com/2009/01/loading-corral-gate.html

I had planned to replace the gate on Sunday but Donna's friend, Mabel, needed her house roof fixed.  A fallen tree branch earlier had put a hole in the metal roofing.   While on the roof I also saw the rain gutters were plumb full of pine needles.  The gutters hadn't been cleaned in years.  So I cleaned all the gutters. In the end I ran a garden hose in the gutters and used water to make sure the downspouts were also cleared.  This took me much of the afternoon.

When I got home I started on the gate replacement.  I took the old gate off, moved one of the lag bolts to a different spot, then installed a metal gate.  The metal gate is a foot longer than the old gate, so I needed to move the railroad tie that is a fence post. Before doing that, three other railroad ties were leaning a little.  That is due to the cattle pushing against them over the years.  I dug around the three railroad ties so I could move them to be straight.

Why the one railroad tie leaned was because the cattle liked to scratch against the small board I had nailed to the post.  The small board's purpose was to hold the long metal corral gate when the gate was open.  Later I had a small short piece of a railroad tie and I placed that in the ground to set the open gate on.  I never took the board off the railroad tie. 

I also used the tractor to move a couple railroad ties and two long wooden beams/posts.

It was getting dark by now on Sunday, so today, Monday, I finished the work.  Yesterday one of the pins for the tractor's forks didn't want to completely fit, so today I did a little drilling so the pin would completely fit.

In the daylight I could make sure the leaning railroad ties were now straight, and I filled the dirt in around them.

Then it was time to move the one railroad tie post.  I needed to move the post over one foot.  The wooden gate was 5 ft wide.  Most metal gates are 4 or 6 feet wide.  The post is 30 inches into the ground.  I dug a new hole next to the post.  This part of the ranch is mostly gravel and rocks below ground.  That made digging harder and longer.

When I rebuilt the loading corral in 2008 I was 15 years younger.  Back then, it was tough, but I was able to stand up these long railroad ties and drop them into the hole.  I didn't have a tractor back them to help me.  Now... I don't think I can lift the railroad ties out of the hole, and don't want to try.  And I have a tractor now.  So I used the tractor to lift and move the railroad tie.  At one point the railroad tie slipped from the chain and fell on top of the fence panel.   The tie didn't break the fence panel, but did knock off the board above the panel.

I turned the tie around so the former spot for the wooden gate's sider would now be on the opposite side of the gate.  The metal gate has a metal eyebolt to chain to and I wanted a solid and complete side of the tie to put the eyebolt into.

You can see how far I had to shorten the fence panel.

The panel has a board connecting the side boards. They are screwed together.  The wooden panel's wood is dry and very hard.  It was very hard to unscrew the screws.  It was hard to screw in the screws as I had to reposition the screws.  I had even drilled small holes in the wood so I could screw in the screws.  At a certain point the phillips screwdriver would slip and not turn.  So I had to use a vicegrip to turn the screw completely in.

The beginning and the end.  I had liked the look of the wooden gate, but it was slow and hard to use.  When loading cattle I may need to quickly open this gate.

Another project done.