Like A Cow Lookin' At a New Gate

When a new gate is installed, cows will stare at it in puzzled fashion.  The old saying, "You're lookin' at me like a cow lookin' at a new gate" means simply that - you're puzzled or confused.  I've heard this saying often in country churches when a preacher says something and doesn't get an "Amen" from the congregation.

That saying pertains somewhat literally to our rumination today.  Our back yard butts up against the pasture where the cows, goats and chickens roam.  We have a large gate that you can drive through on the eastern side and a small gate that you can walk through a little west of that one on the east side of the garden.  If you want to get to the western side of the pasture, you must climb over the fence by way of a pool ladder that is placed precariously over the hog wire fence with a tight barbed wire strand running on top.  The pool ladder is rickety and I have nightmares of it falling and causing one of us to be impaled on the metal T-post!

Time to do something about it.  I purchased two treated 4x4's, an 80 pound bag of concrete and a four foot gate.  I dug two holes with my post hole digger, set the 4x4's in the hole using a level to make them true, and mixed up concrete.  I let that cure for 24 hours and then cut the existing fence, and hung the gate, using zip ties to fasten the hog wire I cut from the fence to the gate.  That keeps the chickens from getting out into the yard.  Here is the finished product:

The live oak tree has a big limb that arches over it, making a nice shady place to enter or exit the pasture.  This entry point makes it convenient to let the cows into the backyard to "mow" the grass.  I've only mowed the yard (with an actual lawn mower) two times this year!  You can see the reel for the electric fence in the photo below.

Once installed, the cows indeed looked at the new gate.  All was good.  Or was it?  After the cows looked at it closely, I did, too - with scrutiny.  Do you notice something about that gate?

This American built gate disappoints me.  It must have been quickly welded together either on a Friday, when the workers were eager to knock off or on a Monday after a hard weekend.  The three top horizontal pipes that make up the gate are not level!  Now that I've seen it, I'll never un-see it.  It still functions as a gate, just aesthetically, it leaves a lot to be desired.  I should have scrutinized it more closely upon purchasing.  It is a good reminder to inspect before buying.  It's also a good reminder to always take pride in your work, whatever it is that you're doing.  I'm not gonna sweat it, though, it works and the cows no longer look at it.  I've been running them through it daily to eat the grass in the yard.

Redneck Engineering - Making a Squeeze Chute

I've mentioned in a previous post that we needed a head gate for over a decade.  Giving shots to cows, working on their hooves, milking some unruly cows in the past, and random doctoring on animal over the years can be described somewhere between a rodeo and a stampede.  Not fun.  We did install the head gate.  We realized shortly after installing it that we should make a makeshift squeeze chute.  Even if the head is secured, trying to work on a cow's body is mighty hard as they can move their entire body from side to side (AND KICK!) if you don't have some means of securing their body, too.

A squeeze chute is expensive.  We found a remedy for that.  We'll make our own using a swinging gate on one side and a fixed, but adjustable rail on the other.  We'll show you the completed design below.  The wise old owl on the roof, by the way, discourages hawks from killing our chickens.

is 

On the left side you can see that the gate is hinged off of the 4x4 which anchors the head gate.  On the right side, we have a 2x4 that is bolted, but hinged off the 4x4 in the front.  It has pegs in the back 4x4 that allows you to lift it all the way up when milking, as it is now, or put it down level to keep the cow stationary and from kicking.   

This photo shows the chute from the left side.  If the cow is in the head gate and chute and you don't want her moving, you simple close the gate against her body and pull a rope from the end of the gate and tie it around the 4x4 you see on the right side of the photo.

This photo shows the railing in the 'down' position.

But the proof is in the pudding.  Does it work?  Well, we have the perfect specimen to try it on.  Yep, we are still working on Rosie's teat that she ripped open.  We milk out that quarter every afternoon.  She kicks like a bucking bull.  She displays her displeasure and pain by trying to get away.  If ever there was a reason for a squeeze chute, this is it.

We coaxed her in the head gate with a bucket of feed and closed the head gate after we had put the rail down.  Then we closed the hinged gate and tied off on the 4x4 in the back, squeezing her tightly.  We installed a boat cleat on the bottom of the back 4x4 that we use to hobble a back leg to keep her further immobile.

How did it work?  She still kicked, but she could not move out of the way.  Milking was easier, and it felt safer, too.  It works!  We like it!  Veterinarians making farm calls to doctor on the cows or palpate them will be pleased as well.  Redneck engineering.  A cheaper alternative that gets the job done.  

Staying in Your Lane

Last year an acquaintance of ours offered to give us a rooster.  The rooster was purchased from a feed store as a baby chick and was supposed to be a laying hen.  However, as the chick grew and matured, it was discovered that the hen was not a hen - it was a rooster!  Roosters don't lay eggs and this person lived in town and didn't want a crowing rooster to wake up the neighborhood.  We gladly accepted the rescue rooster onto our homestead. 

He has grown into a regal-looking gentleman.  Most times that a new bird is introduced into a flock and its already established pecking order, they are ostracized, picked on, and bullied.  Sometimes this mistreatment ends in death.  Not in this case.  The old boy had lots of confidence from day 1, proudly patrolling the barnyard, putting the other roosters on notice and catching the eye of his new harem of hens.

Right before the sun rises, the rooster's crows reverberate around the country-side, alerting slumbering neighbors of the dawn of a new day.  The rooster struts around, keeping his hens in line.  He is the cock of the walk.  One afternoon last week I saw him standing on top of the garden fence and felt trouble was brewing.  I don't want the old boy in the garden, scratching in the mulch and eating our produce.  We once had a chicken that would sneak into the garden and eat the bottoms out of our homegrown tomatoes.  We put a fast end to that.

Saturday afternoon, the fence-sitting progressed to trespassing.  I cornered the curious cock and took swift action.  The bird is big and put up a fight.  His wingspan was quite impressive.

'Twas that impressive wingspan that enabled the old fellow to fly up to the top of the garden gate and then hop down into the garden.  This rooster needs to learn to stay in his lane.  We drew a 'red line in the sand.'

Before

You may be thinking that we killed the rooster, but that's not at all what we did.  I got some scissors to clip his wings.  By clipping his wings, he would no longer be able to fly to the top of the garden gate.  Snip-Snip, here.  Snip-Snip, there, and the job was quickly done!

After

Without those feathers, he would not be able to get in trouble by trespassing into the garden.  His wings were literally clipped.

Like the rooster, we can all step out of our boundaries from time to time.  A little encouragement to help us stay in our lane is much appreciated.  The old fellow's wings will eventually grow back and we will have to clip wings again, but for now, he is grounded, and he is in a "fowl" mood because of it.

The Escape Artist

Here is the door to our barn.  We always keep it closed and locked as we don't want the hens scratching around in there.  We'd rather them be out on the pasture searching for worms and bugs.  The only time we open it, of course, is when we bring the cows and goats in for feeding and milking.  In the evening, it is a real rodeo in the barn.  Rosie, Clarabelle, and Luna come in with Aussie and ClaraBULL following closely behind.  Then Buckwheat, Annie, and Oreo come in, followed by Oreo's kids, Salt and Pepper.  That's a lot of animals in the barn, but it is necessary.

In the afternoon, once the animals are fed, we escort them all out except for the two bulls.  They stay locked in the barn at night so that the cows make milk all night for us.  We don't put them together with their moms until after we've milked them.

We mentioned back in March that Annie, the Nubian goat, had figured out a trick.  She turned into a goat version of "Pop-A-Lock," using her nose to push the latch upward to enter the barn.  In doing so she allowed the bulls to escape during the evening and drink up all of our milk.  Imagine our surprise to go out to milk in the morning, only to find that their udders were empty!

IN THIS POST BACK ON 03/31/2019 I posted that I had discovered a goat-proof 'fix' for the latch, but I never explained what the fix was in detail.  As I moseyed down the aisle in Tractor Supply, I found a latch invented especially for nosy goats.  Here it is:

It's a little fancier than the original latch.  As you'll notice, the new latch has a clip that falls (using gravity) and effectively locks the latch in place.  One must lift the clip with your thumb and push upward in order to unlatch it.

As crafty and clever as goats are, they don't have thumbs and/or the coordination to perform the two-step function of opening the latch. 

At $7.88 per latch, it is a little more pricey than the normal latch that we originally had on the barn door, but the new latch quickly pays for itself once you consider the value of the milk we were losing due to Annie's escape artist routine in which the bulls were sprung free to drink up their momma's milk.

Problem solved.  Now if we could only find a fool-proof rat trap, we'd be in business!

We Have a Milk Thief!

I've talked in other posts about our milking routine.  We keep Rosie and her little bull calf, Aussie, together all day.  He's able to drink as much milk as he wants.  At around 5 pm each day, we separate the two and that enables Rosie to make milk for us overnight.  We separate the two by locking Aussie in the barn overnight.  Then the first thing the next morning we go out and before putting the two back together, we milk Rosie.  By doing this, we're able to share the milk with Aussie. 

Aussie stays in the barn overnight while Rosie makes milk for us!

This morning we had an issue.  Before I went out to milk, Tricia told me that the little bull, Aussie, was out in the pasture with Rosie.  How could this be?  I had separated them the night before.  How did he escape and did he get all of our milk?  I would soon find out.  When I went to clean Rosie up to milk her, her bag was completely empty.

The perp had a very innocent look on his face.  He was sitting as if nothing was wrong, but you can almost see his milk moustache.

So we have a crime.  Milk was stolen. 

We have a motive and we've determined who the perpetrator was.  We need to deconstruct the crime and determine how it occurred to keep it from happening again.  In my estimation it had to be an inside job.  There had to be an accomplice.  But who?  The locking mechanism on the barn door is on the outside.  Aussie is locked INSIDE.
 

The barn latch

Who could have opened the latch from the outside and set Aussie free?  I found out the answer.  I was in the barn yesterday, preparing food for all the animals.  I usually lock myself in.  I happened to look out in time to see Annie, our Nubian Goat, use her nose to pop the latch up and enter the barn.  I thought it might have been just a lucky break, so I latched it again and watched in amazement as Annie popped the latch open again!  Annie sprung the milk thief, Aussie, loose.

Here is a mugshot of the accomplice:

What a guilty face?!

I've now taken some steps to fix the latch.  I even watched Annie to ensure that she is now unable to unlock it.  The crime has been solve and all is well again on the farm.  Well, except if you are Aussie.  He's not so happy with me!

The unhappy milk thief

Quick Fix for a Dragging Gate

Do you ever have a few annoying things that you keep meaning to get done, but they are low priority items and never get scratched off the list?  I do.  Today was a day for taking care of a few odds and ends like this that I wanted to fix.  The 12 foot gate leading into the pasture has sagged over the years.  Now when I open it to bring the round bales to the cows, it drags in the dirt.  I have to pick it up when pushing it or it digs a trench in the ground and is difficult to open.

Digging a trench

Should be an easy fix.  I had an old wheel in a box in the barn that was going to fix the dragging gate problem.

Wheel for the Gate

After putting the gate up on a brick and measuring exactly where the wheel needed to go, I used my drill to drill a hole in the pipe frame of the gate.

Drilling

For the gate wheel's axle, I used a long bolt with washers and a nut.  I ran the bolt through the wheel and then on through the hole I had drilled in the gate frame and tightened the nut.

Tightening it down

And that's all there is to it.  Now instead of lifting and pushing and struggling with the gate, all I have to to is give it a little kick and it glides open.

The new wheeled gate

Ah, the simple little things that make life easier.