I remember now why we quit running cows... Met a new neighbor down the road, whose cow-and-calf broke loose and ended up in our back 10 acre woodlot. They were able to nab the calf and have him tied to a tree in our bottomland, hoping the cow will eventually come find the calf and they can then lead the calf home with mom following. So far, no luck. We think the cow may have busted through one of our back fences into an extremely overgrown area filled with blackberries, or is otherwise on the wrong side of a fence and unable to get to the calf. New friends have spent most of today traipsing through our property (not a problem) and have now come to bottle feed the calf (it's pretty young). Not sure how it will all pan out.

I hope a coyote doesn't find it before the cow does...

Boy, that was my thought as well, and I told the owners that there was a pretty healthy coyote population out back. They didn't seem concerned. As it turned out, though, they ended up loading the calf into their truck about dusk and taking it home, so at least they have half of the equation. No clue where the mom might be - they've pretty much canvassed the area but there are a lot of overgrown fields with who-knows-what fencing still in place. When/if they do recover her, they'll likely have to keep an eye on her for mastitis and such. Glad it's not my problem. I'm going fishing tomorrow...

Cows!

My sympathies... we both grew up on dairy farms and DH decided early on that the only cow he wanted was what fit on his plate. OTOH, we are glad that there are farmers to raise the cow/beef crop for us consumers. Sounds like your new neighbor is a bit of a novice at this?

Yes, she told me they are fairly new to cows. They still live primarily in the city and spend time up here as their work schedules allow, planning to eventually retire up here fulltime. I'm guessing chasing cows all day Saturday and likely most of today was not on their to-do list...

Pod, my husband has been the opposite -- he has never taken to any animal (farm or pet) other than a beef cow, and believe me, we've tried them all over the years! The episode yesterday was a good reminder why we don't want cows again. Although, realistically, it would be extremely expensive to get back into large livestock -- we have torn down most of our fencing and are letting the land revert to a natural state.

Had a visual of the mama cow this morning poking around where the calf had been tied up, and called the owner, but it was right when football was starting and haven't seen anyone yet. And now the cow went back into the woods. I'm heading out fishing/camping overnight so wish them good luck. I told them we'd likely be gone but feel free to bring a round-up posse. I imagine the cow is pretty uncomfortable, she hasn't been milked since about noonish yesterday.

There is a loose cow in our neighborhood too, but she is very thin and her pasture has no grass, but the ditches she's grazing are quite lush so I have not called the absentee owner yet. She is a Charolais and easily visible, so she is unlikely to be hit on the road.

On my drive to Waco yesterday I saw a whole herd of angus cows in the road (Highway 84 with a 75MPH speed limit). Their fence was completely torn down and they were all coming through. I hope that got resolved quickly! There's little worse than the cows getting out.

ours were out this morning (as mentioned in September thread). I don't think any of them actually got to the road before we got down there (Stan on the 4 wheeler, me on the two legs) but they could have. When we came home from town a bit ago, they were all lying down - poor tired things.

At least they are safe!

Not safe to drive on the roads anywhere. Moose on the road in Main, Cows on the road in Texas and Deer on the roads most everywhere.

We also have feral hogs on our roads. Very difficult to see a black hog on a dark country road at night!

Cows on the road are bad enough without feral hogs!

Yep, I'll take cows any day. Hit a cow and you kill it. Hit a feral hog and you just make it mad at you. Not much worse coming atcha than a ticked off feral hog.

I hit and killed feral hog one night and the guys in the truck behind me stopped and picked it up to take home for supper...?

Roast pork!

Hey, don't knock it til you've tried it! We relish wild hog meat here. In fact I harvested one just the other day and we had wild hog sausage for lunch today. Best pork one can get.

When I had horses we had a friend that had cows and whenever they busted loose he would call us and we herded
them back up with the horses . Thankfully the bull that was the problem was the guest of honor at his yearly cook out