Taking The Cows For A Walk

written by

David Boatright

posted on

August 2, 2021

Last week we had some fun and excitement on the farm......

Haha maybe only a rotational grazing enthusiast would think this was fun but I sure did!

We took our cows for a walk down the road

About 70 cows took part on a leisurely stroll about 1.5 miles down the road.

Why?

Well we have several properties that don't touch each other. So when we rotationally graze the cattle and sheep we often have to cross the road for a short distance to get to a new field.

Alternatively we have to load the animals on a trailer and haul them. Its not terrible but it is very time consuming and in the summer its a hot ride ☀️

However, the farm Mariah and I live on (the Muschaney Farm) is the furthest away. It is just over 1.5 miles down blacktop to my families next closest farm (The Finley Farm). Because of this we almost always just put the animals on the trailer to move them between these farms.

Late last week though we needed to move our cow herd from the Finley farm to the Muschaney farm and my parents were out of town delivering some cattle with the trailer.

The weather was perfect though, not too hot and cloudy with a breeze, and it was a Saturday afternoon so not much traffic.

So I decided to do something we had not done in 8 years!

Walk the cows from the Finley farm to the Muschaney farm.

I actually really enjoy walking the cows down the road instead of hauling them with a trailer. Its much more relaxing and just feels like a good old fashioned cattle drive or something.

However this walk in particular is a lot of work as there is almost no fence along the roads.

But I had good help from our team that Saturday (Shane and Daniel graciously changed their Saturday afternoon plans to help). We all jumped to it put up over 2 miles of portable fencing to make sure our cows stayed on the road and didn't do any sight seeing in the neighbors yards or corn fields.

Thankfully we have some very understanding neighbors who let us block off their driveways for over an hour :)

We started the journey with a leisurely stroll down an old farm road.

Our cows are very used to following us when we call them and they happily complied.

Things got a little more interesting when we hit the first gravel road though. The cows were quite surprised to be off the farm (most had never stepped foot on this road and the few older ones who had, had only done it once).

After standing on the road just looking at me like I was crazy for a few minutes. They finally decided they would follow their crazed farmer :)

By the time we reached the blacktop road they were champs. Admittedly they were getting a little tired and didn't set any land speed records but they marched right along.

You can see in this picture just how well behaved our cows are. There is no fence at all on the right. You can barely make out a white line that is our portable electric fence (that wasn't even on).

Because we move our cows so often they are extremely gentle. They know and trust that we are taking them somewhere good and so they follow even when things are really different than they are used to.

One of our neighbors (and good friends) snapped this picture (and a video) as our cows prepared to walk past their yard. They brought their two young boys out to watch the parade and they had a blast.

All in all it was a great time. Several people who happened to be driving by stopped to watch and one old friend jumped in and helped.

Just after the neighbors yard the cows climbed the last hill and turned through our gates into some lush pasture. They were excited to have finally arrived (some of the older cows got excited and recognized the farm when we were getting close) and dove into grazing.

Myself, Shane, and Daniel quickly rolled up all the portable fencing and then called it a day.

It was a very tiring but very rewarding afternoon. Eight years in the making this move left we thinking I should do it a few times a year.

-Blessings

Your Farmer,

David

The Fourth Generation Moves The Sheep

Since, we are constantly rotating our cattle, sheep, chickens and pigs onto fresh pasture so that the grazed pasture can fully recover and because some county roads split the family farm into three main sections we often find ourselves needing to cross or walk down the road a bit. Of course crossing a road is much more difficult than simply opening a gate within the farm as you have to stop traffic, and there is always the chance that an animal could walk through the first open gate onto the road but then for some unknown reason fail to go into the next open gate back onto the farm. Fetching an animal that has made this unfortunate choice in navigation is never a fun activity!!!!So whenever we do cross the road, we try to have plenty of help and set things up as well as possible. Often those additional hands come in the form of the fourth generation on the farm, and I might say a very capable one despite their smaller stature. This past week, we had to cross a driveway abutting a blacktop road with the sheep as we moved from one field to another. It should have been a pretty simple affair as road crossings go, and Judah and E faithfully came with me on that Saturday morning ( for some reason the animals need cared for on holidays and weekends too! ) as we headed out to move them. As we walked outside, JoBelle threw her arms around my legs and said "go width dada, go ow side dada" my first impulse was to try to explain that it was a job for the "bigs" (our household term for the older boys coined by the third brother I believe) and that she needed to stay home. But looking down into those sweet eyes and that expectant face I instead helped her put on her boots and swept her up as we headed outside - giving Mariah a quick update that I was taking her as I did so (counting littles is a full time job at our place). She tagged along like a champ babbling and telling me all kinds of things as I called the sheep across the field and her older brothers herded them from behind - no small task as the warm season grasses composing the field we were leaving behind were taller than the boys!When I got to the gateway and the road that needed crossed, I realized that I had forgotten an extra roll of fencing to stretch across the driveway side of the T in the road. I had intended to use the rtv as a fence along with myself on the black top side but now I was in a pickle. Without something to stop the sheep on the other side they would certainly run down the driveway and visit our neighbors yard and shrubberies. While we get on splendidly with the neighbor in question I do not think they would be over thrilled at this opportunity for "all natural" landscaping (I still shudder at the memory of the goats and the Maple Tree affair)Then JoBelle started telling me something (she is still pretty hard to understand most times) and I had an idea. The sheep are gentle and not ones to approach anything out of the ordinary, so I explained to JoBelle that she was going to sit down in the driveway and guard it while the sheep walked by. She happily complied and I opened the gates. As I called the sheep the fourth generation tag teamed the operation with JoBelle guarding the driveway and the boys bringing up the herd. Once across everyone got a big high five and job well done speech as be bumped our way back towards the house on the rtv.

Taking The Cows For A Walk

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