Post by Mitra on Jan 20, 2010 14:14:29 GMT -5
Aaarghhhh! I was at the kitchen sink and looked out to observe the cows and chickens on this very snowy day and much to my chagrin, there is a cow butt poking out of one of the chicken coops. The chicken coops are outside the barnyard fence so there should be no cow parts visible by the coops. It's our 4 month old steer, Bo, and he is feasting on chicken feed. The big door of the coop was wide open and all I see is cow butt. I drop the dishes I'm working on and scramble to get his teat bucket ready, three hours earlier than usual. By the time I get out the house with it after scrambling to get all my gear on, he's halfway down the driveway and headed for the road He stops to chew on trees and bushes and leap about in the snow. Normally, all he has to do is see the blue teat bucket and he comes running but not today - he wants to be fetched and/or convinced that it's really his teat bucket. Finally I got close enough that he could sniff the bucket and immediately his little purple tongue starts hanging out and he starts bleating for it like a sheep. Fortunately he followed me all the way back to the barn, a distance of about 3 football fields and I locked him in his stall. Now I have to the raise the barnyard fence in order to discourage him from doing this again. Fortunately there is room on the posts to do this but I will be kneedeep in snow. That's the problem, the snow has built up so much along the fence line that it wasn't such a big jump for him. Maybe he even was able to hop or step over. His favorite thing is chasing chickens and ducks so they probably went past the fence and he just continued his pursuit. I can see exactly where he went over. I will rest and then go deal with the fence. Stupid steer!