Cow tongue up pant leg no fun

Old Blue, our nurse goat who keeps our poultry warm at night while not eating much or causing much disturbance, showed unusual energy yesterday when he met Darling, our Herford heifer. Old Blue is very familiar with calves and smaller cows – he made excellent friends with last year’s calves when he kept them warm too. However, this was the largest cow he ever saw!

Darling was moved over so we could finish construction of her brand new barn. We are building it out of tire bales and scrapwood, and she is too friendly to allow for construction to progress easily. Darling will come up and inspect whatever is going on, and want to meet whoever comes into her pen – including bobcat tractors. Then she’ll try to eat whoever is in the pen. A wet cow tongue up your pant leg while leaning on a ladder is no fun. So, Darling got to visit with her other friends in the next pen over.

We rotate pens regularly, anyway: by moving animals from pen to pen, we reduce the risks of disease…and grow some amazing vegetables! This way, too, the animals always have some vegetation beneath their feet, and the ground doesn’t compact to puddle and pool. Some of our vegetable fields remain vegetables all year long, and are all located next to pens where manure is produced.

The animals are all trained to follow on a rope or come when called (even the chickens) and are friendly so that moving them from pen to pen is never a headache. And we usually do so in winter, so that there are less temptations of green vegetables and other crops to munch.

Rotating pens is important and easy, and the training required of the animals for rotating pens sometimes comes in handy at other times, like when the vet wants to take a look at the animals, or when you need to put on a roof without a cow tongue poking up your pant leg.