One Bull After Another

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This week was the week of searching and problems. If something was going to get out, this week was the week it was going to happen. We had many days filled with putting cattle back where they belonged and many days of searching for animals that were hiding from us. Number 68, the bull, has been missing for about four weeks now. Morganne and I have gone searching before, and so has our host. We looked in each square inch of the pastures.

This Thursday, Morganne and I decided to take on the mission of searching for 68 again. We looked in three pastures before we found him. We looked high on top of hills and way down in the hollers. I finally spotted it when we went past a patch of brush trees. He was dead. He had been there for a while, probably two weeks. We called our host to come assess and identify that it was him. In the end, we believe he was beaten up by a different bull in the pasture
and went to the back of the pasture for rest, but in the end, he was struck by lightning. This was a hard hit for the ranch, but now we can all sleep at night knowing where he is instead of wondering where he has run off to.

Tuesday and Friday, our days were spent trying to keep cattle in their right places. Tuesday morning, when I checked the cattle, I couldn’t find the 3/4 year olds anywhere in their pasture. Finally, I went along the back fence. I saw a whole group of cattle, thinking I had found them. I drove closer, but as I got closer, I realized they were all on the wrong side of the fence, besides maybe three heads. I called my host up and told him the situation. Him, Morganne, and Dallas all came out to help put the cows back into the correct pasture. Whilst we were putting the cattle back, we noticed a cow was limping terribly. We got closer, and it turned out she had a broken stifle. She had a calf as a heifer last year that was way too big for her, which caused her to have some back issues. This year, when the bulls mounted her, her leg just snapped in half.

Friday was the day to bring her to the house. But we ran into some issues. We couldn’t find her anywhere when we were looking for her. We decided to wait until it cooled off to come back to look. Friday morning, we were also looking for number 23, another bull. This bull came from the west ranch and had a stiff walk when we put him out. After putting him out, we monitored him every day, but the stiffness was not decreasing, so we decided to bring him in. After finding 68, we think that 41 has been beating up on 23 as well, which is causing his stiffness to not go away, and is why he is off by himself and never with the herd. We searched for four hours Friday morning before we threw in the white flag and decided to come back when it cooled off.

We decided to head back out around 4:30 on Friday evening. A bad thunderstorm was supposed to come in around 5. We thought we would give it a try before the storm. We looked for about ten minutes before I spotted him lying by himself in the badlands. We pushed in out of the pasture and through the other pasture whilst the wind started to pick up. We were on the last stretch when it started to rain. We decided to push through the run if he was moving well, but out of nowhere, he put the pedal to the metal and took off. Just as we caught up, he put the brakes on
and jumped right over the fence. At this point, it was pouring and starting to hail. We decided to leave him and head for the house.

When we weren’t searching or putting cattle back where they belonged, we were putting scrap wire and metal into the dump trailer, stacking hay, and digging up thistles. Overall, this week tested us a lot at times, but we made it through in one piece.

Submitted by: Tamryn Klein
Edits by: GrowinG Internship Team