Escapee Cows
Yesterday
morning my family was eating breakfast and we looked out the window and saw a
cow and its calf eating grass in our neighbour’s front yard. So after breakfast
my sisters and I got scarves and jackets on-it was cold out there-and went out
to see if we could get the cows back into the paddock. As soon as they saw us
they started racing around. The calf got back through the spot in the fence
that must have come from, but the cow was different. We tried to get her
through the gate in the fence but she ran past us and down into the long grass
next to the road. I tried to get her back, but luckily someone had called the ranger
and he turned up in his ute and had a key for the big gate. I went back to our
neighbours and inspected the fence. It had four strands but the top two were close
together and so were the bottom two. And in between there was a hole. Once there
had been some dog wire on the fence but now it was all rusty and the cows had just
snapped through it. I pulled some branched that were over the cows side of the
fence, (or at least where the cows were meant to be) over the hole and left.
The
problem is that once cows get it into their heads to escape they keep escaping.
So that afternoon there were two, black,
cow like shadows in the neighbour’s front yard. My dad and I went to
investigate. The cows had pushed through in nearly the same place as before. They
had snapped more of the dog wire just next to the hole they had got out of in
the morning. Daddy rang the ranger and we tried to get them back in. The calf went
through the fence in another spot and the cow headed down the road yet again.
We
walked slowly behind the cow down the road. Halfway to the gate the calf was out
in front of us with the cow! By this time it was getting quite dark and they
were just two black lumps moving up amongst the grasses ahead of us. Then they
seemed to pass the gate and I heard the sound of wires twanging and the calf
was through. Then we saw the other lump going up and down and wires twanging
and more wires then she seemed to have got to the other side somehow, it was
too dark and too far away to be able to tell how.
We
got to where we thought they had got in; the fence looked perfect, the wires
taught, straight and close. Then the ranger turned up and we told him what had
happened and he said that if a cow wanted to get out there was not really much
anyone could do to stop it. He also said he would probably come back in the
morning and look at the hole in our neighbour’s fence.
This
is not the first instance of escapee cows, once there was a grey cow who was wandering
up and down the actual road early one COLD morning and once a few cows from the
paddock next to us got in our yard. Another time there were three calves that
got out where the fence crosses the creek at the bottom of our place. I
remember chasing them around until they went in but then they came out again a
few hours later and the next day.....There was also a few times when I was out
riding my push bike and I came across single calves wandering outside the
fence, luckily calves seem to be able to fit back through the fence quite well.
It probably won’t be the last either.......
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