Other people have stray dogs…

… We have stray cattle.

These guys have been wandering around since Sunday, when I first saw them milling around on our side lawn. Since then, we’ve almost run into them on the road, and they’ve been enjoying an all you can eat soybean buffet in the field across the road.

They got out of a field one concession north of us, possibly spooked right through the fence by coyotes, which have been getting worse in our area. The night before we first saw the stray cattle, I was awoken at about 2 in the morning by the sound of coyotes killing something – something that screamed. My neighbours were also woken up by it – it’s a sound you don’t soon forget, once you’ve heard it.

The farmer got eight of them back, but can’t quite catch up with these guys. Apparently, they’ve been bucket raised (hand fed feed out of a bucket), so they’re usually pretty people friendly, but these six young male Charolais are spooky after almost a week of being honked at by cars and waved at by strangers.

Tonight I caught their attention, and they were willing to cautiously head in my direction, but they spooked when Bunny (unnerved by seeing six rather strange looking and disturbingly large dogs heading towards us) barked at them.

That did it – they turned tail and ran for the woods.

I hope they get home soon – it’s getting cold, and I’m really worried that one of those idiot gravel truck drivers who sometimes speed down our road is going to careen around the bend and take out the whole lot of them.