Water Everywhere!

The water trough in the bull pen has been a source of trouble for us lately.  First, the baby goats have been sticking their heads through the 4X4 hogwire to drink water and have been getting their heads stuck in the fence due to their horns.  Tricia was having to go out several times a day to rescue the goats.  They aren't very bright.  They wouldn't learn a lesson.  Using a chicken wire frame that was part of an old brooder and a rusty piece of corrugated tin, I built a temporary barrier that has kept the kids out of the bulls' water trough and thus, out of trouble.

Just when I thought I had it all figured out, I come home to what you see above.  Nope, it didn't rain.  The bull named Astro (because he was born on the night that the Astros won game 6 in the World Series),used his head to knock the float valve out of the trough.  The float valve is fastened to the trough with some wing-nut bolts.  After the bull drinks, the water automatically fills until the float valve closes and stops the water flow.  Bulls are notorious for rubbing their heads on everything and apparently he rubbed on the float valve until it was loosened.  Then he hit it with his head until it was laying on the ground with the water running wide open.  All day long!

We weren't home today as we were moving Benjamin into his college dormitory.  When we came home, we found this.  The water must have run all day as the pasture is flooded all the way to the fence toward the south and west.  I hate to see our water bill this month!  I quickly put the valve assembly back on the trough to stop the water.

Astro stood there in the mud seemingly proud of his handiwork.  I was not too impressed.

Bulls are just a nuisance to have on our little pasture.  When they get this age, they begin using their heads to destroy anything in the pasture.  Unfortunately, this also means us!  They will come up to us, lowering their heads and will push us or hit us.  Today while putting the float valve on the trough, Astro came up behind me and rammed me with his head.  I had to hit him in the nose to make him stop.  Then I yelled for Tricia to distract him by feeding him some sweet feed so that I could re-affix the valve to the trough.  We not only have Astro, but we have Aussie and Clarabull.  Astro's mischief today made me all the more determined to go ahead and get an appointment scheduled for him at the slaughterhouse.

We were previously waiting until the quality of the grass diminishes before sending him, but I believe we'll go ahead and take him.  He's plenty fattened up.  Then we'll move Aussie and Clarabull into the 'bull pen' and wean them both.

When the Electric Fence No Longer Pops

It's about that time of year where I begin separating our 3 acre pasture into paddocks.  The paddocks are separated by step in posts and temporary poly wire electrified by a solar charger.  From time to time, however, I'm greeted by a cow who isn't where she is supposed to be.  They've all been popped by the electric fence (and so have I), and so they (and I) respect it.

When a cow or all of them are beyond the electric fence, I know that the fence is no longer "hot."  I have a little trouble shooting routine that I go through to find and fix the problem.  Most of the time a branch has fallen across the perimeter wire and is grounding it.  So to find that I walk the perimeter fence to locate where the grounding out is occurring.

On this particular day, I didn't have to walk very far.  The problem wasn't that a stick had grounded it out.  It is that the fence wasn't grounded at all.  The ground wire coming off of the solar charger had fallen off of the ground rod.  This is how I found it:

The culprit, as you might have guessed, was Astro, the bull.  The ground rod is in the "bull pen."  Astro is at that age that bulls get where they like rubbing their head on everything.  Feed buckets we put in the pen are pushed across the pasture.  Anything solid in the pasture he can find, he rubs his head against it.  If you aren't very careful, he'll break everything he can get his head next to.  Astro had rubbed his head on the ground rod and knocked the ground clip off of it, rendering the fence un-grounded and unable to carry current.

The solution, in this case was simple - shockingly simple.  (Ha ha)I simply pulled the ground rod out of the ground in the pasture and put it ON THE OTHER SIDE of the fence and put the ground clip back on the rod.

This photo clearly shows that he can't get his head on the other side of the fence to knock the clip off.

For the time being, all is well once again.  But that's the thing with livestock.  Just as soon as you fix one issue, another one arises.  One must always be vigilant, anticipating problems and then working quickly to find solutions.