Decaffeinating Cows
3 June 2007
Last week's post discussed how the neighbor's
cattle are doing their best impressions of bulldozers: knocking down fences
and eating their fill of Kona coffee. I understand their craving for
fresh Kona coffee but they have to pay for it just like
everyone else. So with a little diplomacy and a lot of fencing, we
hope to soon have the neighbor's cattle caffeine free.
After some effort we finally tracked down the owners of the cattle. It
wasn't too surprising to learn that the owners have nothing to do with the
cattle. They referred everything to their son-in-law who recently quit
his construction job to manage the cattle ranch. After receiving a phone
call from the animal control officer, the son-in-law immediately called us on
the phone and said he'd be right up to fix the fence. It was nice to
finally get a response. I offered to help, partly to be neighborly and
partly to meet him and be there while the fence was fixed.
We chased the cattle back across to the ranch then one of the ranch
hands discovered a calf that had been left behind. It was very
young with legs that were still quite wobbly. They carried her
over to the ranch side of the fence and said her mother should be able
to find her there. Then they hopped back in their truck and drove
off to get some fencing material. I'm not exactly sure why they
didn't bring some fencing in the first place, but whatever.
I set to work fixing a section of my fence that had once again been
trampled down by the cattle. Thirty minutes later and the
ranchers still hadn't returned with any fencing. That's when I
noticed that the calf had managed to wander back to where her mother
had left her. I picked her up and carried her to the ranch side
of the fence again. This time I brought her in further and stood
there with her for another twenty minutes while waiting for the
ranchers.
They didn't show up until almost dinner time. It was just the two
hired hands this time, the son-in-law manager hadn't come back. I
helped the ranch hands string some barbed wire across the main path the
cattle had been using. There were two other sections of fence
that had also been knocked down but the ranch hands said they'd fix
those sections later.
A little bird told me I should build a cattle trap then sell any cattle that
come on my side of the fence. I'd be within my right to do so and
most of these cattle aren't marked. The little bird was confident
that the owner would never miss a few cattle. I estimate my
losses so far at somewhere near a couple thousand dollars, mostly in
lost production due to damage caused by the cattle. It sure would
be nice to recuperate some of those losses.
Unfortunately, it's not as easy as it sounds. I'm a coffee
farmer, not a cattle rancher. I don't have the equipment or
know-how to handle cattle properly. Imagine trying to build a corral or
trap strong enough to hold a scared cow or angry bull. I don't
have the time or money for that kind of project.
I do own a shotgun. I've butchered wild pigs but butchering a
full grown cow is a different story. Free range beef isn't always
as tasty as you'd think either. Most beef we're used to comes
from cattle that were fattened up on feed lots before butchering.
I wouldn't mind a freezer full of good sirloin but a quarter ton of
tough beef jerky doesn't seem worth all the effort.
For the time being I've decided that repeatedly repairing the fence is
the best solution. I can do spot repairs along the rancher's
fence but there's too much for me to repair it all and most of the
broken areas are on other people's property. I have electric
fencing along most of my property line. The electric fence works
for awhile but caffeine deprived cows can push right through it.
Recently the cattle have decided that night is the best time for covert
coffee theft so every evening we take a walk up to our back field,
chasing the cattle ahead of us as we go. Sometimes they won't come
back for a day or two, sometimes I'll wake up in the morning to the sounds
of mooing. I'll keep repairing the fence, chasing the cattle
and calling the ranch manager. I'm sure we'll eventually solve
the problem. In the mean time, I wonder if anyone has ever asked
McDonald's about the caffeine content of their hamburgers.
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