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Gettin a little fed up...

I

IluvAltaBeef

Well-known member
Joined
Jan 3, 2007
Messages
271
Location
Alberta
We've had cattle break out on us three times already this month. :mad:

First with the thunderstorm, four steers jumped the fence, where too blasted stupid to come home and stayed in the neighbor's corrals

Got them back last weekend...one of the limo's in that little bunch tried to go vertical when they were being herded onto the truck to go to back home, so they're not going anywheres for a LOOONnng time

Then on the same week as we got those four crazies back two broke through the fence and they're busted...also up at the front.

Then, just last night, we found SIX out in the hayfield, and thinking they were the neighbors cattle, went back to count # of head, found 6 where missing, and by the time we got back to get them, they had triapsied off to another neighbor's place a half-mile away. :mad: :mad:

VERY lucky we got them dirty little..... :evil: ....back to the home place before they caused anymore chaos and wild goose-chases over the whole darn county..

Too tired to check fence last night, and of course I'm at school...but the oil company, the folks that put a pipeline in through our land through our two pastures (the ONLY two pastures we have), wanted to come in and replace fence and back-fill the pipeline-trench, when Dad HAD done it already and was happy with it as it was...and of course he got suckered into letting them do some leveling and putting a more permanent fence up, and my theory is that those six got out on the north fence where they're putting a new fence in...

And then there's the county...they had completed the road just west of us, and told us that in TWO WEEKS we'd have our fence back.

It's been at least four weeks, and there's no sign of activity of getting our fence back,and they SAID they'd have some hired hands to put the pasture fence back up for us. :mad: Time to phone our county counselor...

AND, since we're getting sick and tired of running after loose cattle, we've locked them up, I'm going to suggest to Dad to phone the local feedlot owner to come have a look at our animals so's we can sell them off. They're getting big as it is, and they ain't going out to pasture again until the pipeline folks and the county put our fence back.

Thanks for letting me rant and get this off my chest folks.
 
We had a breakout once the day before the truck was supposed to come for them, where they spit into twenty four groups of one. :shock: :shock: :shock:

It took two weeks to get them all back. The last one had Hubby so mad he rode my horse after it right over a railroad trestle bridge! Now that's a good horse.
 
PureCountry said:
Northern Rancher said:
Yearlings and fences will drive u crazy at times.
Click to expand...

I was gonna say the same thing. Yearlings have enough brains to eat, sleep and $h!t, or at least it seems that way at times. Chin up though, things could always be worse.....ya coulda had one get smacked on the road. :wink:
Click to expand...

Thanks.

Oh, we've had worse alright. None got smacked on the road though. :wink: One time we had the whole herd of 80 steers push the iron panels aside and go on a rampage, a high-tailin' it to the highway a mile away. Lucky one of the dairy boys on his quad was there to turn them around and help head them back home.

Another time we had a char throw himself at a moving tractor that was, unfortanetly for some unknown reason being used to chase a herd of 40 animals or so home, busting its leg in half in the process and turning himself into freezer beef.

And of course there's been countless break-outs by fence-crawlers, fence-jumpers, and the like before, between, and after those times.

Yep, I guess that's what we get for raising yearlings. At least we only have to put up with them for a year.

But this county and pipeline stuff just came at a wrong time, it's just getting a little out of hand.
 
I love my electric fences - - - most a single wire but with the biggest charger I could find.

When I bring in new cattle I put them on the feed floor south of the red barn that is fenced with highway guard rails and then I split it with one strand of wire and put the feed oppisite them. After about three or four hours I open a gate and let them go back and forth and the next day I can run them anywhere with one strand of wire and they will not get out.

I do put three or four strands at the road sides to keep stray animals out but my pasture dividers are just one strand and I can keep bulls seperated with just that once they have gone thru my one day course.

I even have one strand of wire lining the woven wire fences and the neighbors claim I ruined their coon dogs as they will no longer climb a fence - - - sorry for their luck!
 
George, we had neighbors complain when we put in some hi tensile electric because they couldn't crawl through and pick mushrooms anymore :? :? Had someone say that someone was complaining about the fence because it shocked a hound that was used to chasing yotes.. I can't say that I gave a rats arse about either of these situations because those dogs have a tendancy to burst through groups of livestock and than I got to spend half the day rounding critters back up...

I need to reground some of my fences, just not getting enough jucie through them anymore in the dry parts of the summer.. Don't think they were grounded enough to begin with but with the combo of heavy weed loads and not enough grounding, well, darn calves keep slipping through on me..
 
Roundup makes quick work of weeds on the fences - - - just make sure to spray while the weeds are active.

I keep the outside fences with mutiple strands to keep the dogs out more than to keep cattle in. If the mushroom hunters can't use gates they don't need to be here!
 
I am leaseing 2 places that are pretty much all electric.Both owners have lived on these places for 30 years and all they have is wire panel corrals and electric fence.In the last 2 summers I've pissed away enough time to rebuild ALOT of good 4 barb fence.I would'nt waste my time putting up any permanent electric fence temporary yes but no other I have had 70 pairs grazeing every hayfield on my uncles place boy I hate electric fence.It's good with good corners and post's close together and a couple of hot wires but then they quit working and the cows are out.I only see these cows once a week and they can sure raise hell on hayground in a week.You take all the time wasted on maintaining these fences over the last 30 years you could have built a 10 wire fence around each piece and spent less money.Did I mention I hate electric fence :mad: :mad: :mad:
 
My favorite yearling fence is four wire barbed electric fence. Saves working with high tensile wire, and if the fencer fails, it's still a good fence. Now if only I had more of it......
 
Denny said:
I am leaseing 2 places that are pretty much all electric.Both owners have lived on these places for 30 years and all they have is wire panel corrals and electric fence.In the last 2 summers I've p****d away enough time to rebuild ALOT of good 4 barb fence.I would'nt waste my time putting up any permanent electric fence temporary yes but no other I have had 70 pairs grazeing every hayfield on my uncles place boy I hate electric fence.It's good with good corners and post's close together and a couple of hot wires but then they quit working and the cows are out.I only see these cows once a week and they can sure raise hell on hayground in a week.You take all the time wasted on maintaining these fences over the last 30 years you could have built a 10 wire fence around each piece and spent less money.Did I mention I hate electric fence :mad: :mad: :mad:
Click to expand...

And then there is the added "benefit" of cattle afraid to even go through a gate for fear they will get zapped. Did I mention that I agree with you about not liking electric fence. :wink: :-)
 
Soapweed said:
Denny said:
I am leaseing 2 places that are pretty much all electric.Both owners have lived on these places for 30 years and all they have is wire panel corrals and electric fence.In the last 2 summers I've p****d away enough time to rebuild ALOT of good 4 barb fence.I would'nt waste my time putting up any permanent electric fence temporary yes but no other I have had 70 pairs grazeing every hayfield on my uncles place boy I hate electric fence.It's good with good corners and post's close together and a couple of hot wires but then they quit working and the cows are out.I only see these cows once a week and they can sure raise hell on hayground in a week.You take all the time wasted on maintaining these fences over the last 30 years you could have built a 10 wire fence around each piece and spent less money.Did I mention I hate electric fence :mad: :mad: :mad:
Click to expand...

And then there is the added "benefit" of cattle afraid to even go through a gate for fear they will get zapped. Did I mention that I agree with you about not liking electric fence. :wink: :-)
Click to expand...

Try doctoring cows on these paddock hot wire pastures a cow with footrot wont slow down for a single electric but a horse needs a gate.One of these places is 200 acres handles 50 pairs but it's split into 9 pastures,I just leave all the gates open and maintaing the prerimiter fence.

You can tell the dairy farmers turned beef here ELECTRIC FENCE.
 
When I hear that cows get out of electric fences when they are shorted out I go back to what I have said for years "IF YOUR CATTLE CHECK YOUR FENCES THEY ARE NOT HOT ENOUGH!!!"

I turned my herd into corn stalks last year and forgot the fence to that field was not on. ( In the middle of harvest I have a hard time remembering my name) Three weeks later I remembered and checked - - dead as could be but not one animal had gotten out! I then energised it, no use pushing your luck.

Yesterday we had a terrible storm and so I checked the fence today. Only 1.4 on my tester so I started shutting off different parts to localise the short and in the process even with rubber boots on and only 1.4 showing I got into the fence. Worse than any spark plug I've ever been bit by.

Fence had two places where trees had come down and shorted the fence to the old 4 strand barb wire and still delivered a good shock. I got the trees off although the cattle had already cleaned the leaves off on their side.(do you need to check your fences after storms? and if so can you isolate the problem ares or do you need to run the entire 5 miles??) I feel that I would have been chasing cows with just 4 strands of baarb as while cleaning the leaves off the would have gone thru. Now I'm showing 8.4 - - - not bad with 5 miles on one charger and plenty of weeds.

In this area if you have good barb or wolven wire fences you still have a problem with stray dogs, coyotes and uninvited hunters. When you buy the hotest charger you can find and GROUND IT GOOD you stop several problems as well as keeping your cattle in. I put pipe gates anywhere I want the cattle to go thru and have no problems there. I doubt I could get them to go thru a span that had a hot wire.

I have a neighbor that has a charger that will show 10.0 on my tester but although the voltage is high it only has 5.5 joules. Mine rarly shows above 8.7 but has 12.5 joules - - - I define joules in our world as pain inflicted.

I had a couple of hot barb wire fences till the game warden issued me a ticket and when I went to court I was given two weeks to replace the barb with smooth wire or face a $10,000.00 fine and six months in jail and probation where I could not own animals for 5 years. It was explained that animals could get caught in the fence and jerk with each pulse and get cut each time. Made sense and I was done in 48 hours ready for inspection.

Electric fence is like anything else - - - if constructed properly they are great - - - if not they can be a royal pain.
 

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