So we learned something new this past weekend about cows. We all know that, often times, lessons can be funny to look back on, even if they weren't so fun at the time. This lesson is no exception, and illustrates pretty well how new we are to all of this. We definitely have much more to learn. This was also pretty entertaining, so I thought I would share.
Friday evening, as we had just finished up supper, I heard one of the cows crying a little more than usual. I looked out and saw one of the heifers, Lucky Lou (#13), standing out front looking over towards the neighbor's pasture, crying pretty loudly. They tend to be quiet unless something is wrong, or if they think we have food, so something was definitely not right with her.
I told Larry what I was seeing, and he said he had noticed her earlier in the day hanging out by 'the honeysuckle fence'. This is what we call the fence between our neighbor's pasture and ours, because the cows usually like to cozy up and flirt with the neighbor's bull. Hmmm, well at this point I am pretty convinced she is pregnant, so I wondered why.
About the time Larry joined me at the window, Lucky Lou started to SPRINT to the honeysuckle fence as she had just noticed the bull standing there waiting. We both throw on our shoes and spring into action, not quite sure where this was headed. We watched for a bit after getting outside, and Larry texted and let the neighbor know that we had some excitement going on.
I am totally confused at this point, because I was convinced Lucky Lou was pregnant, but her behavior was definitely indicating she was in heat. We watch to see if the bull shows any interest, and sure enough, he starts leaning on the fence and making sweet gestures (sniffing and grunting).
About that time, the neighbor arrived to join the party. It was decided to go ahead and open the gate we had installed between the properties. The gate only existed because we had run into this scenario before. When a cow is in heat, no fence is going to stop them from finding love, and the bull next door is always happy to oblige. Might as well make it easy for everyone involved, and just let nature take its course.
With a little bit of wrangling, we had Lucky Lou safely tucked away in the neighbor's pasture, and we shut the gate. The neighbor's cows really didn't take too kindly to her presence, so soon there was a lot of posturing going on. As any proud cow momma, I was particularly pleased to see Lucky Lou holding her own, and actually pushing the cows wherever she wanted them to go. She had this, and would be fine.
I walked over to the yard, and pulled up a chair to watch for a while. Larry decided to go inside because the mosquitoes were getting bad. I wasn't quite yet ready to settle in, because things still seemed tense. Our cows and heifers were not too keen on being separated from one of their own, and every one of them were lined up along the fence. They also didn't seem to like the neighbor's cows were picking on their girl.
They were definitely started to stress out, so I felt I should stick around a bit longer. It wasn't 5 minutes before I was sprinting towards the house to fetch Larry back to the pasture. He heard me hollering, and met me at the back porch. We once had just Lucky Lou in the neighbor's pasture, but now we had three more that had joined her, including the steer. Unfortunately, we had shut the gate, so they just went over the fence.
We decided to just watch and let them determine the pecking order. What else can you do? It isn't like we can stop them, so we could only pray that there were no injuries and things would settle down. We went ahead and opened the gate, and left them to bidding for the night.
And they did settle down eventually. Lucky Lou was pretty distracted by the bull at this point, and things seemed calm with the rest of the herd. We were able to retreat to the house with a bit of satisfaction that everything was under control.
Come morning, they were all happily gathered under the trees in the neighbor's pasture. With a bit of range cubes and the neighbor's help, we were easily able to bring our cows home, and get the gate closed. We have a small stretch of fence to repair, but we still feel like we came away with very little damage considering.
BUT, everything I thought I knew about the signs of a heifer being pregnant were out of the window. My biggest lesson here is don't believe everything you read, and just about the time you think you understand, read some more. And even then, there is absolutely no substitute for experience.
I know now that there really isn't a sure-fire way of knowing that a cow is pregnant, especially a heifer. Sure, we will likely learn how to tell when they are getting close to delivering with more experience, but every cow is going to vary. We will learn how to read ours eventually, but we will need a few years to get good at it.
Oh, and finally, I am pretty sure we have a couple calves incoming, but I am no longer confident that the heifers are pregnant...
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