Herding Dogs at Work

Over the past several days, the cows started grazing new spring grass again. After a steady diet of mostly hay for a good 3 months, they were pretty happy! All the cows except for the bulls are in one herd right now. Hoping we can keep it that way for a good bit of the year.

This morning we needed to move them to a new field (and on the way there they would make a stop in the holding pen so everyone starts getting used to going through the milking parlor daily...calving should begin any day now!), and the dogs got to burn off 30 seconds of pent-up excitement as they herded the cows out of the field.

In the first video Jennifer shot, I'm giving the dogs some instructions (Paul doesn't do much herding, so the fact he even wanted to "help" and even responded to my slight corrections earned him a thumbs up :D ). You can catch a brief glimpse of Silas the streak behind the herd.

In her second video, the cows make their way around Jennifer and me as they leave the pasture and head towards the barn. Silas and Ruthie have had a pattern of competing for work...neither can let the other get ahead of them lest they miss out on the job! And that makes things happen much much faster than they need to where livestock are concerned. But the last few days it seems like they're either working together a little better at times, or else enjoying their work so much (there's still not a lot of it most days, but that'll be changing soon!) that they're not as worried about trying to outdo the other one! Then again, 80 degree days in March could be enough to slow them down a bit too...

We also moved chickens again this morning, higher on the hill because there was a lot of rain in the forecast the next few days. Maybe we won't get that much, but at least they'll not be in standing water in the low ground if we do!

When we moved them a few days ago, one chicken flew out of the fence, and I was trying to lift up the fence so she could go back under. She wasn't cooperating, so I gave the dogs a command to go around her and bring her towards me. Except that Ruthie decided that meant to go straight for the chicken and grab ahold, pulling out mouthfuls of feathers and refusing to listen to me yelling her name and telling her to stop. She was oblivious. Trying to extricate myself from the polynetting in time to save the chicken, I finally managed to grab the hen, scolding Ruthie at length in the process. I don't think she was sorry it had happened, just sorry I made her stop (insert eye roll).

So far, Ruthie is not able to be a chicken herding dog. Second time she did that to a hen, but the first time she even got Paul to join her! Silas does pretty well herding chickens. He can be helpful in moving them away from the fence when I need to drive the tractor in for the water tank or feed wagon. He's not perfect in his execution (probably has me to blame for much of that), but he's a really good boy :) .

We usually like to move the hens when they're still inside the eggmobile in the morning. That day we had to move them after they were already outside running around. When dad got the tractor hooked up to the eggmobile, a few hens hopped up on the quick hitch and roll bar on the back. When he started moving, most of them flew off. But one hen rode all the way to the next stop :D .

By the end of the day today, the cows had caught up to the chickens (these three yearlings seemed to be enjoying the poultry show in front of them), grazing some ryegrass, kale, maybe some baby sprigs of hairy vetch, plus the ever-present fescue. Other than the fescue, this mix was from seed we'd been able to purchase with the help of the Soil and Water Conservation District through a cost-share grant last year. In 2024 this pasture was significantly turned and aerated by our pigs. 

That winter we bale grazed the cows here, which had the unintended blessing of filling in some of the pigs' rooting mounds and holes (I repeated this process in last year's pig field because of this!). It had a lot of weed pressure last summer, so we grazed/mowed them off and planted new species afterwards. Considering it was a sandy soil hilltop and it was pretty dry for several weeks last fall, it was amazing how much that kale grew in the fall! There's no doubt the most impressive growth of the kale was where the remnants of a hay bale was decomposing. Such an increase in moisture-holding capacity!

We didn't get to graze it this winter because the extreme cold spells caused the kale to die back. Some of it is returning from the roots though. It's possible this pasture may end up growing some summer annuals later this year!

Spring has historically been my favorite time of the year. It's amazing to witness firsthand the return of life from what looked dead for many months. It's exciting to kind of have a clean slate each spring. Everything from grazing mistakes to weather challenges are kind of a distant memory, and with spring comes renewed hope.

That's what Jesus Christ offers to all of us. A clean slate, a fresh start, renewed hope and an invitation to participate in something so much bigger than any one of us. He takes the dead things and brings them to life. He transforms the mistakes into testimonies. And he gives us purpose. Hey, if a would-be chicken killer can be reformed into a skilled herding dog, imagine what the Good Shepherd can do with the likes of me and you.