Cows Behaving Badly Part Three

The critters around here are just not in the mood to cooperate. The herd sire, Sky High, managed to become a magician and disappear from one group and reappear back with the main herd on the other side of the county road. Nyad and her new baby Dolphin are still hiding out and we only see glimpses of them as they try to beat the heat in the thick underbrush. And the Complainer Cow (so named for the grumbling she does when she believes she is not getting her fair share of food, attention or acknowledgement) has now come in heat and is driving the two bulls in the bull pen into a frenzy with her scent and bellowing while Sky High is dawdling with the main herd. In 24 hours, the Complainer will be back to her non-heat self and things should settle down both in the show barn area and with the two bulls in the bull pen.

While we get the harvest completed in the far, far field, we are slowed down since Nyad and her calf are still hiding out. The last thing we want now is to have them wander out onto the county road or into the hayfield as it is being processed into bales. Each time we enter or leave the field, the two gates have to be opened then closed behind us. Times this by how many entrances and exits with tractors, balers, stackers, rakes, mowers, fluffers, and truckloads of hay, we are spending an exorbitant amount of unnecessary time and energy because of the pair.

We are finally nearing the end of work in the far, far field. We have most of the hay picked up, safely stored in the barn and need to move the equipment to the next field that needs to be harvested. Mike took the mower up by the barn where the small barnyard and area between the six acre field and The Rabbit Run to get them mowed down. Normally we would already have The Rabbit Run disassembled so the whole 26 acre field could be mowed as one field but since Nyad is still AWOL, we keep it up (and in the way) so she has passage up to the barn if she so chooses to join the main herd.

The morning after Mike mowed up to The Rabbit Run we found Nyad. She had used The Rabbit Run, but did not stay within the boundaries of the temporary electric fence. She was out in the newly mowed section eating as fast as she could and pooping crazy volumes of manure over many of the rows. We would have moved her over to the barn so we could get her back with the main herd, but she had left her baby napping somewhere hidden on the wrong side of the river over by the far, far field.

There was little we could do except for open The Rabbit Run up, let Nyad get back to her baby and lock them once again estranged from the main herd and out of the newly mowed field.