Get a couple of cows, they said.
It will be fun, they said.
And then you come home from the store
and see THIS!
Really???
I just had to laugh.
Poor Kyle, though.
He started the morning with an ocular migraine.
He has been doing lots of reading lately
and I think his eyes were just tired.
Once he put his book down,
it switched to a regular headache
and then, since he hadn't eaten anything,
it progressed to a regular migraine.
Fun.
When we got home from getting him
some milk (and some other stuff...)
I found the cow.
Surprisingly, dealing with the whole thing
actually got rid of his headache!
(Or maybe it was the handful of various pills...)
First we tried luring them over to the
willow trees and pulling down branches
for them to eat. They LOVE willow!
But the little black cow is super skittish
and every time Kyle would reach for her
she would freak out and run away.
So then we brought them into the barn.
Closed all the stall doors except
for Andy's stall and they tromped
right on in like they had been living there.
(They've never been in the barn before...)
Kyle got the brown cow to let him pet her,
(we call him Dr. Doolittle)
and she would even let him lean on her to
reach over and pet the black cow,
but every time he grabbed a hold of the tire,
she would freak out.
A 12 x 12 stall with two untamed cows
probably isn't the safest place to be.
And we weren't getting anywhere.
Next he got his tractor and brought up
the old chute he got from work.
It's homemade from rebar and not
particularly well built, has a head catch,
but that doesn't help because we need to get
the tire OVER her head...
He put it in the alley of the barn - crosswise -
and put the forks of the tractor on top and
added a little weight to keep her from
just knocking the whole thing over and
breaking a leg (or neck or what have you...)
Unfortunately there is a piece of steel at the bottom
of Andy's stall door, so the door to the chute
couldn't open - we ended up scootching it to the right,
up against the stall on the other side of the alley,
and then you open Andy's door one direction
and the chute door opens the other,
making an escape-proof "alley" into the chute.
We also closed the barn gate for extra safety.
We opened the stall door and let the brown cow out.
She was happy to be out on the grass,
but kept coming over to check on her friend.
Then we loaded the black cow and her
necklace into the chute.
It just BARELY fit.
She wasn't super happy about it.
She can really BELLOW!
There is a ladder built into the front section,
made a good place for Kyle to hang out.
He straddled the chute and tried to lift
the tire off her head.
It was pretty sketchy.
She kept raising her head and thrashing
it about, pinning his foot, or his arm,
or trying to unseat him...
Finally succeeded in getting ONE horn out,
but then either the other horn or her nose
was in the way and we couldn't figure it out.
We were contemplating calling Linda's
large animal vet (she sent me her number)
and having her come over and tranquilize
her so we could cut it off...
but then we got the idea to put a rope through
it to stabilize the tire.
That helped a little,
but not enough.
I was standing at the front of the chute,
holding the rope tight.
Then we added a 2nd rope,
which I was also holding tight,
so no more pictures...
lol.
That was better, but still not enough.
So Kyle got down next to her and added
a THIRD rope so the tire really couldn't
move and then we started popping
her on the nose to try to get her
to back out.
She hollered.
Kyle tapped.
I reached in with my toe and
popped her on the nose.
And Kyle nearly lost his hand.
Kyle tapped some more.
She hollered some more.
And then, after two and a half hours...
SUCCESS!!!!!
She had to back out of the chute
and wasn't happy about that...
but she finally figured it out and we
let them graze on the lawn for a bit
(until they got too close to my peach tree...)
They are happily back in their pasture.
And all the tires are locked up in a trailer.
On to the NEXT adventure!
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