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Last week on memorial day I was loading up a small group of yearlings to move to another pasture. On steer, who I previously had no problems with, perked his head up and ran from the herd. My wife and I tried to quietly move him back to the group. He ran through a single strand of polywire, then umped a 3 strand HT fence into a hay field. We followed him across the hay field and saw him standing in the back corner. This had a 5 strand HT perimeter fence on one side and another 3 strand on the other. We tried to drive him towards a corner through a gate, he decided to run down the fenceline and went past my wife over a hill. It turns out there was a loose ground wire sagging and grounding out the hot wire below it, bringing the fence voltage down to around 1.2 kv. I fixed that up and got it back to around 5.6 kv. We couldn't find any tracks through a gate, but it was also very dry. There as just too much area to cover, we decided to let him be hoping he'd come back to the group(we didn't load them, gave them some grass from the hay field with polywire).

I called the police, nobody called a loose animal in. A few days later I found some tracks through a gate I didn't think he would have gone through, but he did. The next day I looked in the back corner and he ran out of some thick brush. Meanwhile I had purchased a Dan-inject tranquilizer gun from my vet. By that time it was too close to sun down so I decided to come back the next day. Saturday morning I moved his herd mates to the corner where he was near and left for a little while. I came back and thought maybe he'd be down near the fenceline again. There was an exterior gate near there and I started running some polywire through the woods to try and circle around him. I was walking back to the ATV to get some posts and flushed him out of some brush. I got my traquilizer loaded up and headed into the woods. I saw him from a distance, he ran into the middle of the fence that was half up. I went back to get more posts so I could finish containing him, the plan was to let the herd in there with him, let him re-group and move them back into the pasture together. As I was finishing the last of the fence I thought I felt something on the polywire. When walking back towards the gate to let the others in I found tracks where he jumped the fence. I took the fence down and decided to come back the next day.

Now it's Sunday, I went down there and started looking through the area where I last saw him, no luck. Then walking back to the truck my mom and wife showed up, my wife had seen him on the other side of the fence near the group a few hundred yards around a corner form where I was looking. I got the dart gun read and was going to circle around behind him. The plan was for them to stay in some key areas to view where he went if he ran.

I snuck into position, the first shot was set to high and over-shot. The second shot was a hit. I was aiming for the neck but got the ear. He couldn't tell exactly what happened and didn't run. I walked away and came back to find him laying down. I had another dart ready. He got up and should have shot then and there. He started going in the woods and I had to circle around to get him back towards the fence, fortunately he was a little drugged. We started pushing him down the outside of the fenceline, hoping to get him to the gate. Meanwhile I put another 1/2 dose dart in him. We got him through the gate, I thought maybe we could get him back to the group and let him wake up with them. But...then he jumped a fence. I decided then and there his days of grazing were done. My mom followed him on the ATV and my wife and I went back to the house to get some corral panels. We got back and he had laid down in some junipers. We unloaded the panels, just as we starting to put them around him he got up and ran. I got him into a corner and put another dart in him. He ran through a fence, through some brush, across a field, through and other fence and into some brush. I tried pusing him out and he ran down the fenceline.

At this point he was running up a drive way towards the thick stuff I originally found him in. I kept him from going deep into the woods and managed to get him to move to a stand of briches. I then took the ATV back to the truck and got my Lariat. He got up while I putting the rope around his neck, but i got it wrapped around a tree. Eventually we got him on the trailer. I called the butcher shop this morning and they said I could bring him in. I'll be picking him up at the end of the week in the form of patties.
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