Wednesday, April 16, 2014

It’s been an exciting few days here. After losing Heidi, we had put up an electric fence to keep the cows up close to the barn. Monday when we went out in the afternoon to feed Gertrude her keto-aid I saw a cow out in the pasture and thought at first one of the steers had gotten out, but then I saw both of them inside the electric fence. It was Heidi!!! She was in bad shape, barely able to walk, no obvious wounds except a small cut on her rear. Between feed and the bobcat, we were able to get her back to the barn, where she was able to get a drink and some hay. We checked on her later, and she had gotten up and moved to a different spot, so that was encourage. Same for the next morning.

Yesterday we let her, Gertrude and Jerky out of the barn, since it was a nice day. Both Heidi and Jerky introduced themselves to the electric fence, so hopefully they’ll both make sure they stay away from it. Later this spring I want to enlarge that enclosure and put up three strands of electric ribbon, and hopefully that will help keep Suka away from the chickens.

It’s a blizzard here today, so we opened the barn and fed the cows their hay inside, and hopefully Jerky will not feel the need to go exploring, which little calves have a deplorable tendency to do. Some pictures from yesterday, Jerky enjoying the sun,

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and Heidi looking better than she did Monday night,

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