The rotation

This morning we decided to put our cattle in a different pasture so we can rotate pastures.  Original plan was to get some cattle cubes (they really love those cattle cubes for their treat) put it in the bucket and just lure them all into the new pasture.  It would have been perfect if it all worked out as planned.  But if things go as easy and smooth as fairy tales this would not be the "comical" farm life, right?

We got a bucket with some cattle cubes in it.  We started shaking the bucket to get all the cattle to come close to the gate.  All the cows know by now when they hear the sound of cattle cubes shaking in the bucket that means they are getting a treat!

We were able to get all the cattle right by the gate with no problem.  We thought if we could lure the adult cattle into the new pasture then the calves will all follow the mama cows.  We were so wrong!  The calves were too scared to follow the mama cows into the pasture.  So we spent quite some time this morning trying to run after the calves and corral them and guide them to the other pasture.  As I mentioned before I'm way too out of shape at the moment to be running after those calves.  So hubby was running after them and trying to get them to run toward the gate.  That didn't work very well.  Then we tried putting a lead rope on them but they would never let us get close enough to do that.  So finally hubby was able to corner one of them and was able to scoop her up and pick her up.  But boy as soon as hubby picked that calf up the calf starting screaming and mooing.  Hubby kept yelling "open the gate!  Open the gate!"  As we watched the mama cow started charging toward hubby.  I've never seen hubby that scared in our entire married life!  Hahaha. And hubby ran so fast to the gate and threw the calf inside the new pasture and luckily beat the mama cow to the gate and avoided some possibly very serious injuries!  And lucky enough the other calf saw what was happening and kind of freaked out so he actually just crawled under one of the fences and into the new pasture.  So once again the calves are reunited with their mamas.

All cattle accounted for and happily settling in their new pasture with plenty to eat!

It's been a busy morning here on the farm.  After rotating pasture for the cattle we decided it's time to separate the donkeys as well.  See the donkeys that we have they are a 3 year-old mama donkey with her little boy who turned 1 not very long ago.  Usually you start weaning donkeys around 6-9 months.  But we were busy with other things so we procrastinated until now.  The longer you wait to wean them off of course the harder it is to do so.  So Jack has been trying to jump over and crawl under the fence.  He was crying and making noises and just really wanted to get to his mama.  But he's already 1!  He should not still be drinking milk from his mama!

We spent some time fixing up some of the fences this morning hopefully Jack won't be able to escape to the other pasture to be with his mama.