Always seems fun helping the neighbors!!! Not!!! LOL

I got the one fellow's calves fed no issues. I was just in the house and had my work cloths off and my phone rang. An older family friend asked me if I could help him load some fat steers he wanted to haul in for the over night Monday market. So I bundle back up and go over.

The fellow quit milking a year ago. He bred his last Holsteins to one of my Angus bulls. So he is now getting Angus/Holstein cross steers. He is used to bottle fed Holstein calves. These Angus cross calves are way more spirited then what he is used to handling. So we get the five fattest one sorted out into another pen. One of them just its his head down and under the CHEAP/JUNK/KY gate. After the gate bends double and pops the poor welded hinges off, the calves are all back together.

So we have to find a "good" gate and resort everything back out. That is lots of fun!!!! NOT!!! LOL We get them loaded and I told him I would ride to town with him. It a good thing I did ride with him. He got about half way out his mile long drive and got stuck on the ice. His four wheel drive had broken last year and he just had two wheel drive. To make it even better he did not have any of his SEVEN tractors plugged in. That costs too much money!!! LOL He is 78 year old and TIGHT. I called my middle son and had him bring the JD 4450 over. It is MFWD and has chains all the way around. So we finally get out to the road and finish the four mile haul to town. It only took a little over two hours but it seemed longer with the cold.

I told him to bring his truck by next week and we will see if we can find out what is wrong with it. He did say he was going to go buy a couple of Franklin gates to sort with too. So just more fun and games in the cold with livestock.

might not be much fun but if I need help when Iam 78 I hope there is a kind neighbor like you to help Me -- all I can say is nice job!! ---Roy

KUDOS to you JD for helping in such cold and miserable weather. There is a special place in Heaven for folks like you.

I feel for you on the sorry loading facilities. I've struggled with that in the past and quickly started a policy of building up the facilities as much as possible. I posted earlier about a large bull in the area that my relatives finally got hauled to the sale barn for one of their neighbors, then he went through two or three gates to get out. The last word I got was that he had got in a pasture near the barn and the sale barn people got horses, etc to catch him but I haven't heard the final word. The opinion is that if he is caught the sale barn people should take him on a 40 mile trip to a slaughter house and warn them to send him directly to the killing floor.

Excuse the ramble, my comment is that the gates your neighbor mentioned getting must be a local brand since the name is not familiar to me. Hopefully they are heavy duty. I always thought the sale barn gates mentioned above were too light(the thin wall type) and I was proven right.

KEH

Dad started making all our gates out of 1/4 angle and SS tubing he got from a tube mill that sold the imperfects. They are heavy and nothing gets thru them.

I am proud I live here instead of there since I seem to get those requests from my neighbors. We had beef cattle even when we were dairying and it was still hard to convince all the family that the heavier"more expensive" gates were necessary in the freestall area when we put in the colored cattle for feeding.

I started to read all of this and my hair went up!!!!!!! They have been gone since 1976 and I can still remember, "THE COWS ARE OUT"!!

I live 13 miles from home, and fortunately I haven't gotten more than a couple calls that the cows were out since I moved away. Usually when they do seem to get out, I'm already at the farm doing fieldwork so I'm right there already.


Worst was one summer when I still lived at home. Seemed it didn't matter what we did, they kept getting out. We'd fix the fence and they'd just find another spot, or even the same spot again. Had to chase them through chest high oats one night around midnight with a heavy dew. The sheriff department woke us up and 2 deputies helped us out, neither one with experience chasing cattle. Took a long time that night you get them all, and we were all drenched from headrto toe from the dew.

Donovan from Wisconsin

I think I told the story here of last Fall being stuck at work and getting "the cows are out" call. Losing Dad 18 months ago changes how I react to that-he was the cow guy going back into the 40's when they would milk the neighbor's cow for days on end when she would come over to get fed properly! So glad I have a friend who farms full time/ flexible schedule and is more experienced than I with cattle. Lack of handling facilities and experience keeps me from breeding my own calves, I find it easier to just buy replacements (not cheaper).

Neighbor some years ago never fed his cows right so they were "out" about once a week. Seems like I was always the first one called. If I ever thought about livestock on this place, that took care of it.