ViEw from thE Cow PasturE

By E.B. HARRIS

If I Hadn’t Seen It With My Own Eyes, I Wouldn’t Believe It

The other week, I was moving a few cattle around, stockers out to pasture that we had sized up into groups to make load lots. We keep big steers at the farm we call the Old Place, which is about three miles from home. We also keep a few breeding heifers in a different pasture across the road.

I carried a few steers down to put in with the big steers, turned them out, and was coming back up the road and looking at the set of heifers we had across the road. Shane and I had talked about one heifer we had put over there that probably just needed to go somewhere else. In other words, she was a heifer that just did not fit in with this group.

There were about 25 of the heifers standing at the gate as I was coming back up the road. I thought about that heifer. She is fairly gentle, and if she comes up to the gate, maybe I can get her out in the road, walk her across the road to the lot, get her loaded, and get her to the pasture she needs to be in.

I eased off the road across from the gate where the heifers were. I walked over to the gate and that heifer was right there in the middle of the group of heifers. I opened the gates and walked around a little bit and got in position. This heifer walked right out of the pasture to the shoulder of the road. I closed the gates back so the other cattle would be in the pasture.

The heifer walked right across the road and sniffed the trailer, and then walked away from the trailer back up in the road. The rear end of the trailer was facing the way she was walking away from. I decided to try something.

I walked over to the trailer and swung the back gate open. She was about 30 or 40 yards down the road, just grazing a little and looking around. I walked up past her and right easy got her turned around, and headed her back toward the end of the trailer that was open. She walked back up to the trailer and sniffed the back gate that was open, turned her head and came around to the open part of the trailer, sniffed one time, and hopped in.

I thought to myself. I am not believing what I just saw. I walked up to the back of the trailer and closed the back gate. I brought her back to the house and turned her out in another pasture. I have been fooling with cattle all my life, and if someone had told me that this was going to happen, I would have had a lot of disbelief, but I saw it happen. Just goes to show, you can never tell, or the moon must have been just right.

Angus Means Business. The American Angus Association is the nation’s largest beef breed organization, serving more than 22,000 members across the United States, Canada, and several other countries. It’s home to an extensive breed registry that grows by more than 300,000 animals each year. The Association also provides programs and services to farmers, ranchers, and others who rely on Angus to produce quality genetics for the beef industry and quality beef for consumers. For more information about Angus cattle and the American Angus Association, visit www.angus.org