When people find that I have goats, I always get something along the lines of 'how do you keep them contained?!' Because, as everybody knows, goats are escape artists, able to leap tall buildings (and fences) in a single bound. If they can't go over them, they go through them, catlike. Well, I've never found that to be true. A barbed wire fence won't hold my goats, but I've never had any problem with any escapees with field fencing. I wish I could say the same for cows!
When we first got into cattle, it was corrientes. Well,............that was interesting! First day here, they jumped the fence and took off. Found them the next day, 12 miles down the road. Once I got them convinced that this was home, they stayed fine. Since them we've had an assortment of bum calves, they've always stayed fine as this has been home for most all of their lives. A year and a half ago, we purchased a bred lowline cross. Tired of paying their weight in gold for bums and I hate bottle feeding so we went with a cow so as to produce our own, cow fed calves for the freezer. Things went along fairly well til now.
Everybody has told me that she needs at least two months away from her calf, since she still nurses him, before she calves. Ok, put her in the field with the dairy girls and leave the calf and the older steer in their old pasture. No problem. Well, that was a wildly optimistic thought on my part! She has jumped the fence twice and bashed in one gate to get back in with her calf. Jumping the fence wouldn't be so bad if she didn't take half of it down with her on her way. So, now she is back in with the others and we'll just have to hope she does fine. If there is a problem with the older one nursing I suspect I can separate her and her new calf and things will be fine. But, jeez, what a PITA!! My goats stay where I put them. They may scream about it, but they stay put.
Cows, on the other hand.................................................
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