This morning about 8:30 I loaded Mouse into the trialer with 5 other horses for the short ride over to the lake pastures to help my neighbors gather their cow herd and sort off the calves for vaccinating. The herd of about 250 cow calf pairs gathered easily...they know this routine well.......and off we went to the corrals. There was a very cool wind blowing from the north, and they were a little difficult to get into the corrals (remember I said they know this routine?) but we did manage to move them all in. With all of them in the corral it was very full, and so while Doug sat on Putz in the middle of the gateway, Donna, Gail and I rode into the herd and started pushing cows to Doug. Doug and Putz would let the cows pass him and turned the calves back into the herd. It didn't take us too long before we had all the cows sorted out and a corral full of calves left behind. A really good test for a solid cowhorse! ;o) Soon we were moving small groups of calves into the holding pen for the boys to push them into the alley. They were vaccinated and turned out to go find their waiting mommas.
Once all the calves were done we rode out and gathered the herd again and pushed them back north (remember that cool...nope make that COLD wind??) to the pasture we brought them from, and headed back to the trailers for some hot coffee!! Loaded the horses and headed for home......I was back at my barn by 1:30, a good mornings work! I had fully intended on taking some pictures but it seems I need to buy some new rechargeable batteries for my camera :( So I've added a picture of the herd at the corrals at branding time.
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