Adventures at the Vet - February 23

Our Scottish Highland bull, Casper, came home from his visit with the vet on Wednesday. We are happy to report he is all fine and healthy. :) When we went to pick him up, we dropped off two of our heifers that we had scheduled for dehorning surgery. Saturday came, and what was supposed to be a quick "pickup" at the vet turned into a real rodeo!

We arrived at the vet to find only one trailer ahead of us in the vet barn. Yippee! We thought. Little did we know how things would go from there. The two gentlemen with the trailer ahead of us were in their senior years ... a very nice father (90's) and son (70's). As they went to unload their cattle from the trailer, they errantly left one of the chute gates open, so the cattle ran down the unloading chute and out into the open barn. Okay, so this, in itself, is not really a big deal since there are gates closing in the whole barn. The problem came when the Dad decided to go into the barn to help move the cows back into the working chute ... and left the gate open!

Rob was standing about 80' away and saw him walk in and not shut the big gate. Before Rob could run over and catch the gate, out ran one of the big cows. Off she goes! Running to the hay lean-to, running all around the loading yard, running thru the now lined up trailers and trucks. She did NOT want to go back in the gate, or into any enclosure she was offered. She wanted to stomp her feet and snort. She wanted to charge. The more she was encouraged to go into one of the pens, the madder she got! Ever seen a cow herded by a Bobcat before?! She even trotted all the way up to the main vet building and went inside the new office area they are just closing in. After taking a brief look around, out she trotted... back down to the loading area. On the way, she passed the main entry gate protected by a cattle guard. You'd think she would keep going right... nope. She passed it by, then turned around and went back. "Hmmm..." she seems to think. Then, to all of our shock and dismay, she jumped feet first INTO the cattle guard. A cumulative moan rises from the crowd that has gathered. Amazingly, this mad cow looks around, climbs back out of the cattle guard, and trots back down the fenceline. She proceeds to eye all the trailers with great content before retreating to the hay area and standing there snorting.

While all of us were trying very hard to keep her calm and stay out of her way, she was obviously rather pissed about visiting the vet. The gentlemen finally got the rest of their cows thru the vet chute and back in the trailer (with a little help from their new friends). When we backed up to load our two heifers, the vet opened the gate to the pen they were in (they had been watching this all transpire) and simply told them to go get in the trailer. Off they trotted without any problem... up the ramp, into the trailer without a single "moo". As he walked behind them and shut our trailer gate, the vet was heard to utter "Now, this is more like it!". Merrily we went on our way that day, glad to have provided less entertainment for once! :)