Cow chasing?

Allan's post below about toasting the reverse on his truck chasing cows made me think a thread on cow chasing stories might be interesting. Yes, I have chased cows in a truck but (A) mine was a straight drive and (B) the field was fairly small and surrounded by trees so much chasing was not in the cards.

I had a cow that was wild get out one time. Couldn't get her to go back in the gate. She was hanging around the cows across the fence instead of leaving the area. I finally ran a strand of electric fence across the narrow part of the pasture to keep the rest of the cows away from the gate, which I left open. Finally she went in the gate to get close to the other cows and I shut the gate and took down the electric fence, reuniting the herd.

KEH

Some of ya'll might be familiar with Nordstrom's Auto in Garretson, SD. They were a dairy farm that morphed into a huge auto salvage yard. They also sell a lot of rebuilder vehicles.

There was a time when they were in transition that they had to do their chores on the dairy end of things in the morning before they turned to the automotive business.

About that time, they advertised a Ford Ranger pickup as a rollover rebuilder. There was a note at the bottom of the ad that said, "Ask the boss about chasing cows in reverse".

More than once I have given a steer shots under the 65 Ford 4X4 then pulled off of him to let him go. PS he would not go in the pen for anything.

The Hoody radio show!

Fun fellas, every Saturday.

Paul

Had an old cow go ballistic one time. Rolled 2 seperate 4-wheelers. Took 2 guys off of horseback, treeing one of them for an hour. Finally gor her into a corral she could not jump out of 8 miles from home. WENT STRAIGHT TO TOWN. THEN SHE CLEARED THE PEOPLE OUT OF THE FRONT ROW OF THE SALE BARN.

1988 here in western MN was a drought year. Electric fence doesn"t work well with bone dry ground. Sunday morning got up, cows are gone. Checked the usual spots they"d head to, no cows. Jumped in the pickup, drove around for about an hour. Found them grazing peacefully in the church cemetery and lawn about 5 miles north. This is just about the time parishinars are coming for morning worship. Lutheran cows at a Baptist church. Had a short discussion with the cows (may have been inappropriate language for church) and got them headed home. Very little hay, no pasture, sold the cows a few days later. And I don"t miss them.

This was a month ago. I posted it on my Facebook page, but its to good to not retell. Its the honest truth!!

Anybody ever notice that when you make a conscious effort to do a serious Bible study, weird things happen? Lisa Weber and I have really been trying to spend a few minutes, each day in the Word. WELL, today, I branded and hauled our new Longhorn Heifers across the river. Not 5 minutes after I walked in the door, neighbor Brett, stops and says your 2 freshly branded Longhorns are headed up the river hill. Horses are all out to pasture, so we think we can get 2 measly little heifers back a half mile with the Gator, and 4-wheeler. NOPE one went through neighbor Don's yard. 2 laps around his house, with me in HOT pursuit with the 4 wheeler, and she bales the 4 wire fence back onto us. No biggy, leave her there and put the other one in the same pasture. NOPE, well sorta. Baled the fence by the dump, but headed north FAST. I get around her and point her east. After 2 fences, she is over in neighbor Jim's. I give up. Go up and tell Jim I have a heifer on him, and will get her out after she calms down. WHICH IS WHAT I SHOULD HAVE DONE!!!!!!!!
Weather is supposed to be getting like winter this week, so while I am sitting there talking to Jim, I see my heifer still headed east at a lope. By this time she is well over a mile from where I left her. I am still thinking I can just let her calm down and go after her in a day or so. WELLL NRCS man Casey is out doing what all federal employees do on a nice day. He is out driving around with his little GPS thingy. Anyway Casey calls and says, Ya know that nice red and white Longhorn heifer that was out on the highway? Well she is now over on neighbor Rick's ground, but is pretty calm. He says, Rick is shipping his cows home today, and I'll bet if you take a horse over that way, that nice little heifer will head towards his cows.
Shoulda come in and done more bible study.
I hook Lisa's pickup up to our new fancy little trailer, go catch my horse, and HERS. Come back get saddled up, haul over to neighbor Ricks. Ride a couple hours, finally see the DEVIL. Horns out, breathing fire. Well dripping blood out her mouth. I sneak around the edge of the canyon as Lisa goes back to open the gate. About the time I see Lisa coming back, and have a good idea where I need to end up to be on the right side of the heifer. POOF she is gone!! NO STINKING CLUE WHERE she is, nor do I really care.
Neighbor Jim calls about then, and says he found this nice looking little black and white Longhorn in our pasture. Long story short, right at dark she is headed the same direction the red one went!!

And now a month later, they are both over at neighbor Shawn's place. When it isn't so icy, and my collar bone gets healed up, I WILL get them home!!

We had a horse that you could only catch once a day. I took after her with the 4 wheeler. I hit the front brake to hard and flipped the 4 wheeler. bent the handle bars and both racks. It does not pay to get MAD.
SDE

We could never get it through grandpa's head that you couldn't just take a wire gate and lay it on the ground - you had to move it out of the opening. We would chase cattle from pillar to post only to find that he had the gate laying across the opening. The cows would take one look at that and turn and retreat. He was such a smart man but there were a few things that just escaped him.

We finally bought a bracket to mount the spare tire in the front of the old pickup so he would have something to push the cattle with. Repainting front fenders gets expensive.

I usually have 500 pounders get out. I have chased them (usually one at a time) up and down fence lines trying to get them through the gate back into the pasture. I have finally got to the point I will go get a tractor and keep running them until their tongues are hanging out. By this time they usually become much more cooperative.

You can kill 'em doing that ya know.

Allan

You can kill them doing that and you can kill them with a 4wheeler too...my bonehead impatient brother seems to kill at least one cow a year by getting mad and hitting them....resulting in a broken leg and the cow laying there dying a slow death until someone puts them out of their misery....steams me every time, but I can't get him to quit....never had that happen when I was a kid and we worked cows horseback!

Should have mentioned I was agreeing with Allan about chasing them till their tounges hang out.

Nothing wrong with chasing with a pickup or anything else as long as you know what you're doing and the temper doesn't get out of hand.

Moving them slowly is the fastest way to move them. If only I could remember that when they get out! I usually remember that when MY tongue is hanging out!

I got jerseys now most cattle you try and chase will take off in a straight line.not a jersey they know how to turn tighter then a pickup and use a hillside to there advantage. they will wait till you get straighten out before taking off again.i found out its a lot less stress to use carefull use of pickup mine so love to play the game of you take one step i will take 2.fireup the truck and its wheres the gate.i was laid up last year calves got out amish kids decided to help they got behind them and the chase was on finnally after an hour or better and calves in neighbors they gave up .next morning a little grain and ten minutes latter i had thrm in somepeople are not good with cattle. side note dad let kids take care of calves well it came back from sale barn a hfr got sold i checked the ones i bought from him and yup there was a hfr there.what happened kids looked at head and decided if it was a bull or hfr that way!!! now you would have thought the girls would know the differance after changing a few diapers?

I put the first scratches on my brand new 79 Dodge pickup sliding on the wet grass and into the barbed wire fence chasing a cow. I was 28 and didn't have a clue how to control my temper. Jim

Years ago I sold a few breeding bulls.

I decided to take one to the county bull test where they fed the bulls together with other bulls. Then they were auctioned off at the end of the test.

My 700 lb bull was nice and calm at home. Loaded him in the trailer and when unloading the bull turned to the side at the end of the trailer Sorted a little and scared the guy that was blocking a 2 foot wide hole beside the bumper of the trailer. The guy jumped to the side and out the bull went

As they say the chase was on. I unhooked my trailer after 10 minutes and the calf just would not stop. We were in an area where most of the fences were gone on the edge of Iowa City. We were getting close to I80 and he got in with some sheep and finally stopped. I told one of the guys to find a rifle and we better put him down before he gets on the interstate.

The guy missed from 100 yards with a 30-06 from 75 yards. Away he went again but stayed on the road this time.

Another guy was riding with me and grabbed the lasso from behind my seat.

We were right along side him on the road and the guy got the lasso over his head while we were still at 15 MPH or so, believe it or not.

I said wrap the lasso around the 4 wheel drive lever and we started to slow but the calf didn"t and was bending the lever. We sped back up a little with the lasso wrapped on the lever. We were down to about 10 mph I grabbed the rope and took it through the steering along with the wrap on the lever and started to slow again. We held him but he had about 6 foot of slack.

Wham against the front fender. Then wham against the rear fender. Another truck got there about then and we got another lasso on the bull and stretch him between the two trucks. Another truck got my trailer and we pulled him into the trailer and home I went.

When I got home I put him in the barn where he came from. He walked out up to the water tank then to the manger to eat hay like nothing happened.

I guess he did not want to go to town.

A few years later the same thing happen when we took my daughters 4H calve to be weighed in.

A few young lads took off after the 600 lb calf.

I yelled at them to stop. Told my daughter to go get him and told the boys to stay here.

She started talking to him, he stopped. She walked up to him grabbed the halter and led him back to the scale after I cleared everyone out.

The boys could not believe she already had him halter broke 6 months before the fair.

Gary

BIL's outlaw bull got missing for about 3 day's found him at the creek saturday morning, 5 head of us ran that joker through the woods up and down every branch and holler on that end of the place till we finally got him in the back of granddaddy's pasture headed for the lane that led to holding pen and barn,though we had him till he cleared the fence right at the barn,daddy said let him go I will get him,came in from school Monday evening trailer hooked to the tractor was bloody all over,asked daddy what happened he said the bull couldn't out run a 30-30 bullet he was at the slaughterhouse,he had little tolerance for hard to handle animals.

Took my daughters 4H steer to the scales to be weighed. Daughter led him around like a dog on a leash. The workers couldn't believe how tame the animal was. He was getting big, didn't want him to get over weight. Stan

Years ago I helped Burt, an elderly friend of mine, round up a runaway after he slipped through the fence and took off down the road, but on the back side of the several houses there. After a lot of circling and chasing we finally got him out on the road and headed back up towards the pasture, but not before he dropped the most beautiful looking cow pie right on the front walk of one of the houses. I mean this thing was perfect, a work of art. When we went back to check for damage I found Burt standing there looking at that cow pie. He turns to me and says “I don’t know whether to clean it up or charge them for it…”

Neighbor of ours called that a 30 caliber lariat.

Maybe running into your impatient brother and breaking his leg a time or two would solve that?

Someone who won't settle down and keeps trying to move the cows at his pace instead of theirs, ticks me off every time. It's a lot easier to rile them up and get the circling than it is to get them calmed down and standing still again.

Last fall when we weaned and shipped calves, only one kicked, and no one got kicked. I asked someone if they noticed who -wasn't- in with the calves helping move them.

He noticed too.

My daughter and classmates had to bring cattle in regularly for a research project when she was in grad school. She bought a Border Collie, then they watched the dog do it, and the dog lived for it. How does it go? Your collie dog will bring you your paper, your retriever will bring you your slippers, your Border Collie will bring your house up to code.