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Moo cows

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Moo cows

Postby Lefty » 01 27, 2021 •  [Post 1]

My father in law ran cows. Ive had a few small pasture cows,.. a real hate hate taste great thing going.
Next year I dont want to step out in the middle of the night and step in a hot juiciey one,.. I want my TP to stay near my thinking seat,.. and kept in place . And Im planning on a spike camp next year

The spike camp Ill fence.

Is there anything short of moving camp that will keep cows out
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Re: Moo cows

Postby Elkhunttoo » 01 28, 2021 •  [Post 2]

Maybe a dog... that’s the best I can come up with lefty
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Re: Moo cows

Postby Trumkin the Dwarf » 01 28, 2021 •  [Post 3]

electric bear fence?
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Re: Moo cows

Postby Swede » 01 28, 2021 •  [Post 4]

I would think an electric fence with solar charger would work, but moving may be cheaper and ultimately better. The trouble with the electric fence is it is going to be in the way of your own ingress and egress. I tried for years to find a way to keep them away from the water holes where I had my tree stands. Ultimately, I decided that moving was the best option. I think you will come to the same conclusion.

BTW: If you look in the definitions section of the tree stand book, under "cattle", you will see my take on the hairy oversized maggots.
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Re: Moo cows

Postby Lefty » 01 28, 2021 •  [Post 5]

Swede wrote:, you will see my take on the hairy oversized maggots.

My FIL ran 1400-17oo feeders. And he made good money when he had them.
He is very opinionated about cows. His idea of range management (public land) is way fewer cows. His cows were only on private property. You maybe heard some of the same arguments about public ground timber. Hard for the private guy to compete.

Part of my situation. Cows were to be off the pasture we hunted in August,.. All I know If I thought 30 head were missing for 45 days,.. thats a problem, plus they had a young, grumpy clean up bull we had to watch out for.

I have thought of the hot fence.
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Re: Moo cows

Postby >>>---WW----> » 01 29, 2021 •  [Post 6]

One year I took a couple of hay bales to camp to be used for target practice. The next day, they were gone. Cow magnets!!!!

I placed a barbwire fence around my antelope blind once to keep the cattle from destroying it! That seemed to work pretty well. :lol:
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Re: Moo cows

Postby saddlesore » 01 29, 2021 •  [Post 7]

Try huntingwith3-4000 sheep. Every water source is fouled,every blade of grass gone They are suppose to be off by Sept 1,but there are always strays wondering around and herders scrambling to find them who speak no English. Between the two,I prefer cows. Don't let any one tell you elk won't mix with cows. By the1st rifle season, there are 400-800 head of elk that came off of National Forest lands on this ranch mixing with cows.They are there because of hunters on the NF and not because of the grazing lease of cows

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Re: Moo cows

Postby wawhitey » 01 29, 2021 •  [Post 8]

I hate free range cows. I really do. One area i hike and hunt a lot is loaded with them. Okay multiple areas are. But this one area, the cows there are flat out mean, no joke. I know it sounds dumb, but theyre damn landsharks. Great bear hunting area, but those cows make me nervous, have to detour wide around them. Several times theyve kept me from hunting where i want, kept me from getting to water i needed, theyre just nasty.
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Re: Moo cows

Postby Swede » 01 30, 2021 •  [Post 9]

I like Whitey's term "free range cows". That is not quite what they are though. They are taxpayer subsidized range cows, that do not comply with the permitted or the environmental standards that govern their use.
Saddlesore seems to not like the Hispanics tending the sheep, but I would rather talk with them, or even their dogs than some of the cattle permittees. At least the vaqueros and sheep herders I have met, and their dogs, are not surly and obnoxious.
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Re: Moo cows

Postby saddlesore » 01 30, 2021 •  [Post 10]

Swede wrote:I like Whitey's term "free range cows". That is not quite what they are though. They are taxpayer subsidized range cows, that do not comply with the permitted or the environmental standards that govern their use.
Saddlesore seems to not like the Hispanics tending the sheep, but I would rather talk with them, or even their dogs than some of the cattle permittees. At least the vaqueros and sheep herders I have met, and their dogs, are not surly and obnoxious.


Heck,I am surly and obnoxious.I guess that is why I get along with them.

Well the cattle permittee is required to put up drift fence in grazing allotments and develop any water sources needed.So it does cost them more than the grazing permit.Blame the Forest Service or BLM for not enforcing the regulations. Sheep grazing permits require the sheep be moved every 2-3 days, but 3-4000 sheep can do a lot of damage in those few days. It is called Multi Use. You can either graze it,timber it or let it burn.We have seen what non-grazing and no timbering ends up as with all the wildfires.

The herders in NW Colorado are either from Peru or Brazil, not Hispanics. Different dialect. Hand signals are about all that works. Their dogs will chew you up if you get too close to the sheep. I lived 10 years in NM in a predominate Hispanic, as it is called now days, community. They were called Mexicans. People of Spanish decent did not like to be called Mexicans because Mexicans are Spanish and Indian. They were looked down on by the Spanish. Both disliked gringos. The words Latinos, Hispanic, and Native Americans did not exist then and I still use the older terms. Guess there are good and bad in both type of permittees.
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Re: Moo cows

Postby Lefty » 01 30, 2021 •  [Post 11]

wawhitey wrote:I hate free range cows. I really do. One area i hike and hunt a lot is loaded with them. Okay multiple areas are. But this one area, the cows there are flat out mean, no joke. I know it sounds dumb, but theyre damn landsharks. Great bear hunting area, but those cows make me nervous, have to detour wide around them. Several times theyve kept me from hunting where i want, kept me from getting to water i needed, theyre just nasty.


I once had an exclusive 7 acre island to hunt between two hunt clubs. The landowner gave me all sorts of good advise,.. told me where there was a hunting pit, different access when the water was froze or high. But I never expected the advise,.. Stay off of the island if momma cow ( stated her tag number) is on there. I only had one run in with momma cow,.. and she was the orneriest cow on 27,000 acres.
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Re: Moo cows

Postby Lefty » 01 30, 2021 •  [Post 12]

The location I was referring too for a spike camp is a ways from our base
The grazing association didnt get all the cows out, I was told because they couldn't find them


saddlesore wrote:
Swede wrote:I like Whitey's term "free range cows". That is not quite what they are though. They are taxpayer subsidized range cows, that do not comply with the permitted or the environmental standards that govern their use. Saddlesore seems to not like the Hispanics tending the sheep, but I would rather talk with them, or even their dogs than some of the cattle permittees. At least the vaqueros and sheep herders I have met, and their dogs, are not surly and obnoxious.
Heck,I am surly and obnoxious.I guess that is why I get along with them.Well the cattle permittee is required to put up drift fence in grazing allotments and develop any water sources needed.So it does cost them more than the grazing permit.Blame the Forest Service or BLM for not enforcing the regulations. Sheep grazing permits require the sheep be moved every 2-3 days, but 3-4000 sheep can do a lot of damage in those few days. It is called Multi Use. You can either graze it,timber it or let it burn.We have seen what non-grazing and no timbering ends up as with all the wildfires.
The herders in NW Colorado are either from Peru or Brazil, not Hispanics. Different dialect. Hand signals are about all that works. Their dogs will chew you up if you get too close to the sheep. I lived 10 years in NM in a predominate Hispanic, as it is called now days, community. They were called Mexicans. People of Spanish decent did not like to be called Mexicans because Mexicans are Spanish and Indian. They were looked down on by the Spanish. Both disliked gringos. The words Latinos, Hispanic, and Native Americans did not exist then and I still use the older terms. Guess there are good and bad in both type of permittees.

First year ever, a single Forest service section and and an adjoining BLM section wasnt grazed this year by sheep.
And guess what,..
I glassed saw or heard elk in there 1/2 the time,.. sometimes just a few elk cows . But elk where we seldom saw elk in Sept.
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Re: Moo cows

Postby saddlesore » 01 30, 2021 •  [Post 13]

These cattle out on grazing leases are not like milk cows.They don't get handled much and when they do,it is not very kindly. A mama cow and new calf is just about as dangerous as a moose with her calf and some range bulls will clean you clock without any reason.

Elk will not intermingle with sheep, but will move back in within two weeks or so.

You will always get a few cows that drift too far or are sullied up in some thick stuff and hard to find.Where I went it is usually 8-10. That represents, $20,000-$25000 to the owners. More if they have calf with them.The owners sure don't want to lose them. Where I hunted the lease permitted 600 cow calf pairs. It ran about 30miles north and south and 8 miles east and west. A few cattle always drifted over the divide and were not found until the adjoining allotment permittee drove his cattle down, 20miles away.. and then called their owner. One bowl I hunted always produced elk,but every once in awhile 2-3 cows had moved in and had stayed there all summer.Those times I had to go hunt elsewhere.
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Re: Moo cows

Postby Lefty » 01 30, 2021 •  [Post 14]

Saddlesore; Ive help find lost cows. But these were "missed" with a bull

This pasture the association is always pulling some sort of stunt. Lost cows , missed counts.
Well I guess its their contracts, minutes after midnight they were unloading cows.
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Re: Moo cows

Postby wawhitey » 01 31, 2021 •  [Post 15]

saddlesore wrote:These cattle out on grazing leases are not like milk cows.They don't get handled much and when they do,it is not very kindly. A mama cow and new calf is just about as dangerous as a moose with her calf
.


Plenty of experiences with moose cow / calf pairs, bull moose, bears etc in this area. The only thing that legitimately scares me are these damn free range cattle. I swear theyre rabid man eaters. Cattle in other areas im careful around (due to my experiences with the bad bunch) but not exactly worried about. These ones in a certain stretch of mountains, i think theyre evil incarnate. Pitbulls with hooves. Like theyve been bred for aggression. Pretty weird, and hard to get people to believe without seeing it for themselves. Ive fired a number of warning shots (which slow them down for only a second) and been down to my last round or two, ready to make the next one count, before theyve let me back out. Ive only had 1 moose experience where ive thought i was going to have to shoot the jerk. Several occasions with cattle near the colville res.
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Re: Moo cows

Postby Lefty » 01 31, 2021 •  [Post 16]

wawhitey wrote:
saddlesore wrote:These cattle out on grazing leases are not like milk cows.They don't get handled much and when they do,it is not very kindly. A mama cow and new calf is just about as dangerous as a moose with her calf
.


Plenty of experiences with moose cow / calf pairs, bull moose, bears etc in this area. The only thing that legitimately scares me are these damn free range cattle. I swear theyre rabid man eaters. Cattle in other areas im careful around (due to my experiences with the bad bunch) but not exactly worried about. These ones in a certain stretch of mountains, i think theyre evil incarnate. Pitbulls with hooves. Like theyve been bred for aggression. Pretty weird, and hard to get people to believe without seeing it for themselves. Ive fired a number of warning shots (which slow them down for only a second) and been down to my last round or two, ready to make the next one count, before theyve let me back out. Ive only had 1 moose experience where ive thought i was going to have to shoot the jerk. Several occasions with cattle near the colville res.


Your quite the writer, well done!!
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Re: Moo cows

Postby 7mmfan » 02 01, 2021 •  [Post 17]

I remember my first hunting trip to Wyoming as a kid, I was 13. I'd hunted with my Dad around Washington a bit, but hadn't really spent that much time in the woods hunting to that point. Our first night in Wyoming we were hunting a state piece and were walking out right at dark. As we started down this draw towards the road, a big white bull came charging down the hill right at us. Dad was clearly on guard and somewhat anticipating this because he had left a shell in the chamber for the walk out. He clicked off the safety and fired a round into the dirt near the bull which was still 40 yards away but coming hard. He had another shell chambered instantly and was ready to fire when the bull pulled up at about 15-20 yards and stood there blowing snot and stomping around. It was a very intimidating experience. Since then, I've never had a significant run in with cattle, but I am very wary of them.

Have definitely had them visit our camp a few times though, and yes, that's frustrating. Hot fence or dog is about the only thing I can think of that would keep them out.
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