Freelance cattle

Yesterday evening, as I was picking blueberries, I kept hearing the mooing of range cattle.

This isn't really unusual. There's a family who lives about a mile away from us who raise beef cattle, and they have extensive property in the area. They rotate their cow/calf pairs year round. We hear cows all the time.

The reason the noise from the range cattle caught my ear last evening was because it was coming from the wrong direction, from down a steep hill where this family doesn't own property ... and the noise sounded like it was getting closer. "I wouldn't be surprised if some of their animals got out of the fences," I commented to Don as we leashed up Mr. Darcy for his evening walk. This, too, is nothing unusual. With as many cattle as this family raises (several hundred), a few are bound to get out once in a while. The neighborhood takes it in stride.

Fast forward to this afternoon. I glanced down the road and saw five cows and three very young calves grazing their way up the road. Oh great. Freelance cattle.

Normally this wouldn't be a big deal, except these animals were conspicuously not the same breed as those raised by the folks down the road from us.

We started checking in with neighbors, who reported (a) yes, the animals have been hanging around everyone's respective properties all day; (b) they do not belong to the family down the road; and (c) neighbors have been calling around, trying to find the owners, to no avail.

Immediately upon seeing the cows right below our house, Don and I sprang into action. Don went to close the lower driveway gate so the freelance cows wouldn't wander onto our property.

I called our own livestock in and secured them in the corral for the evening, since I didn't want to risk any fences being breached by our animals (notably our steer, who may not be as steered as we'd hoped when we castrated him as a calf; while he's never managed to impregnate anyone, he sure does act like a bull) in their eagerness to greet the newcomers.

Our actions were none too soon. The freelance animals lingered right in front of our driveway gate, cropping down the grasses. Had the gate been open, we would have had visitors.

From the corral, our own cows could see the freelance animals as they moved up the road. They were very interested, mooing and bellowing.

I noticed a brand on one of the cows. Don and I both looked up brands for this region and found absolutely nothing. Side observation: That is one massive cow.

Bottom line, no one has any clue where these animals belong.

We half expected to find the freelancers on our front lawn, since we have no gate blocking it off, but instead they diverted down a side road and disappeared from view down the hill in the same direction as I heard them coming up yesterday evening.

It was a very hot day, about 96F, and I'm guessing these animals have not had much to drink in the last 24 hours. I hope they find their way home.

Bonus photos of our animals in the corral. Here's Lucy:

Romeo:

And Maggie licking her yearling heifer Stormy: