Back in 2003 we had an ugly drought here. We struggled along and did our best as did everyone else. Inevitably some enterprising cow finds how easy it is to defeat a fence and by the time the year was over and we were into feeding for the winter we had 3 or 4 fence crawling cows. Our intention was to ship them and say good riddance but the next spring they were still here and still set on their fence crawling ways despite there being sufficient grass on our pastures.
One particular cow had given us a lot of headaches in 03 and had lead a small entourage of cows into a neighbours yard more than a couple of times. These neighbours were acreage dwellers, back to land, old hippy types. Harmless and pleasant enough, growing their garden, keeping a few pigs, even a few cows from time to time that had ocassionally managed to wander on to our property over the years. Well our old hippy neighbour had been very unpleasant when our cows had wandered into his yard and, while acknowledging that the fault was entirely ours, I was a little non-plussed as his cows had been on our land and we had taken it in stride as most farmers have livestock issues from time to time. I offered to pay damages which he refused so we gathered our problem cows and took them home. After a couple of repeats we finally penned them up at home in steel panels and fed them hay. That was in 03. Spring of 2004 we put our cows on our north quarter for pasture as was our regular practice. There was good grass and we felt things should return to normal. NOT. That damn cow got through the fence, travelled 1/2 mile east down a right of way, another 1/2 mile south down a county road PAST a different neighbours oat field which was about 8 inches tall and had NO fence, all the way to our old hippy neighbours front yard. I was away from home when this happened so my wife got the call so she went down, offered to pay damages which was refused again then brought the offending cattle home again. When I got home she told me what had happened and how angry our neighbour was about the cows in his yard. I was angry and baffled. What would make a cow do such a thing? Why would our normally nice neighbour be so angry? I have learned over the years to do nothing when I am angry and give some time for things to settle before doing anything or making any rash decisions. I was discussing the cows behaviour with family and friends that evening and someone mentioned the cow was almost acting like an addict in her strange behaviour. And THAT'S when it hit me!! It all made sense now. In '03 she must have gotten into his home grown patch of Wonder Weed and taken a liking to it! That's why he was so angry and that's why she was so dedicated to returning to his front yard!! 2 + 2 was making 4 again in my logic brain...........
So the next day I shot the cow and sent her for hamburger to our local butcher. It was ordinary hambuger with no extra side effects....lol. The other 3 cows we loaded and sent for a free trip to McDonalds. That was the end of our fence crawling problems and out cattle farming returned to normal. Well, as normal as cattle farming ever gets anyways.
Regards,
Dave.