The Herd

As you can see, the cows are now a herd.  Babe is indeed the boss.  She is also eating me out of house and home... or I suppose I should say barn and pasture.  The larger the animal, the more calories they need to consume.  Hopefully we have plenty of hay to get these beggars through the winter.  
There is a problem we often have with new animals on the place:  They have to learn how to drink from our in-ground waterers.  This was no problem with Babe, though, because Cliff's brother has the same type of waterers; it's what she was already used to.

Her first day here she knew exactly what was behind that black rubber curtain.

She had no trouble at all pushing it back with her nose to get a drink.  


Babe only has one other thing to learn, and it really isn't essential:  The pasture behind the house has a lot of alfalfa in it, so we don't want the horses going in there due to the risk of founder.  It's surrounded by electric fence, which Babe is familiar with.  We want the cows to be able to graze there, so Cliff has fashioned a walk-through entry that's big enough for the cows but not tall enough for horses.  Clyde, Bonnie's calf last year, never entered that pasture; he was always afraid to go through the opening, so he'd graze with the horses while his mom grazed the good stuff; it certainly didn't hurt him, because he is delicious.  We'll wait and see whether Babe ever goes in with the other cows.