When All at Once a Mighty Bunch of Red Eyed Cows He Saw

Last night when I went out to shut the gate, I heard the cows making a lot of noise in the bottom. It's not like them to make a lot of noise late at night. I figure cows keep quiet in the dark for a reason; so sabertooth tigers won't get them. Anyway, this morning when I went to check on them, there were 5 nice black cows on the dam of the lake. The only problem is I have red cows. I opened up the corral and they came in so I closed them in and Sissy called my neighbor to see if they were his. Sometimes when this happens they're not his, but he knows who's they are. However, these were his. He came and got them during the day. 

After work today I rode the fences and found a 50 foot section of fence in the bottom that was completely destroyed. This means one thing. The neighbor got a new bull. When bulls start fighting no fence (except an electric one) has a chance. The area they tore up was some of the best, tightest, 6-strand barbed wire fence I had. There is no sign a fence was ever there. That's what I heard going on last night.

By the time I got home today, they had gotten it out of their system and all the cows (and bulls) were separated back with their own herd. I moved mine up to the front pasture until I get a chance to fix it back. My only fear is his bull will come back over looking for my bull and they tear up more fences. I may have to put up an electric fence if it doesn't calm down. This same thing happened a few years ago when I was trying to keep my bull away from my cows to keep from having summer calves. It was fine until the neighbor's bull got in with my cows and then my bull tore up 5 fences to whip him and send him home. After that I decided to alter my breeding program to be year 'round. 

The way I figure it now, its the same as dollar cost averaging your 401K. When I have calves to sell the market may be up, or may be down, but I always have them to sell regardless of the market. Those poor guys that have a 90 day breeding program as the experts recommend are stuck selling their calves when they need to go. I have a small trailer and couldn't fit all my calves in it at one time anyway. Until last night my program was working fine.