Red Neck Shakespeer: Day Two, the twilight zone.

I think aliens came last night and abducted all our calm placid cows and replaced them with evil, insane clones. Today was a day right out of a horror film... it all started with the cow that went bolistick yesterday...R brought her up again and she tried to jump every single section of fence...we did get her in by Jason the hoof trimmer going back to help R and I had to man the hydraulic gate on the trimming table...by this time of course R is swearing profanities colourful enough to make a dockside hooker blush and I am having performance anxiety...thinking that I had better not screw up and not catch her after everything they were going through back there to get her up where I was....in the end we humans proved once again why we are on the top of the food chain...and she got her feet trimmed...but when we let her out of the table she charged me and knocked me on the ground then charged our dog and hurt his leg...before running to the far side of the field and nearly jumping the barbed wire fence...she did go back with her calf...and she now has two red X's beside her number on our cow list...and if there is a drought again this summer she is going bye bye.... maybe if it rains all summer...

about half way through the morning we ran up against another cow...this one is always a bit nervous but today she totally lost it. R asked if it was alright to bring another cow and we said yes...so then he started chasing her up the alley...she tried to jump the gate...so Jason ran back to give a hand and she turned and ran at R...then tried to jump the pipe gate...she nearly made it over but slid back and when she did her front leg slid down between the gate and the plank fence...and her front foot became wedged...she kept pulling trying to get free...and tossing her head at R if he got too close...R ran for the bolt cutters to cut the chain on the gate...but she kept fighting and eventually got herself twisted enough that she fell down...with her head twisted back and under her body... It was sickening to see. R came and cut the chain and got her free of the gate but her head was still trapped under her so we pushed on her neck and she was freed...she jumped up but was holding her leg up off the ground...I still think she broke the bone...but R says she is stepping on it... we phoned the butcher to come kill her but then R cancelled he thinks she just tore ligements and is going to give her time to heal....then she too will go on the truck....

So just when we thought the day couldn't get any worse and there was just one cow left to do today.... R goes back in the corrals to bring her up and she had tried to jump the gate and only made it half way over...so there she was just hanging half over the gate...folded in half just behind the rib cage...and she was struggling to breath and her udder was turning blue from the circulation being cut off....we put a halter on her, got the tractor and pulled her back, off the gate...she fell down on her side and just layed there. We thought at first she was dead...and I had visions of dead cows heaped up in a pile....ahahaha. We got her on her feet and while she was still woozey we ran her up the alley and into the chute...she got her feet trimmed...and the day came to a close...not a moment too soon to suit me...

I just want to say, for the record that I have been handling cattle for over 30 years now and never have I seen behavior anything like what went on today...I am not sure if I could have dreamed this shit up...

There must have been something in the air....I mean I can see the odd cow misbehaving...but not on such a unilateral field. Amazing, simply amazing...

Any way these pictures are of Jason Travis, our farrier working on one of the cows this morning...one of the well behaved ones as it turned out... I really feel for the cows when we do this since it must disconcerting for something that size to be lifted off its feet and layed on its side...the whole process is really quite painless unless they jump gates and such...the ones that did co-operate where done in under 15 minutes each...