Many of you know we recently had troubles with a destructive stocker calf. We had a stocker cow/calf pair that jumped the fence to our neighbor’s pasture try as we may we could not round them back up and bring them to our own pasture again.  We had to hire professional wranglers on horseback to come round them up and load them onto our trailer for us.  In the process of separating them, they ran with the rest of our neighbor’s herd and crashed through fence after fence, destroying all in their path and requiring several days to finally get all bovines to their  rightful pastures. We’re still in the process of repairing all the broken fences!

Of course that destructive calf no longer resides at our ranch, but the troubling experience makes me all the more appreciative for our permanent Hereford herd. Since we interact with our cattle daily they do not see us a foe but as mindful and careful caregivers. Such handing assures our herd is calm and stress free. We enjoyed a familial visit this weekend and I’m perfectly comfortable with my young granddaughter interacting with our herd (with supervision of course). Our Herefords know that life is good at our homestead.

Pushing a baby calf where you want it to go is like trying to push cooked spaghetti across the table in a straight line. LOL #TexasHomesteader