About a week and a half ago my freshly weaned calves got to running and tore up a little fence and some of them were in the wrong pasture. No big deal. This kind of thing happens and I didn't mention it here. We got the ones that were out back in and went about our business.<br />n<br />nI screwed up though. I didn't go out of my way and count them. I just assumed they were all there. Yesterday we got them in and counted them in preparation to working them. Damn was I surprised. Nineteen of them were missing.<br />n<br />nI knew right away that they went missing on the night of the wreck when they got to running. The question was where were they. I right away knew they weren't any where on my place. I had ridden or driven all of my pastures since the wreck and I would have seen a sign of them so I could discount that. That really only left one place they could be. The Padlock Ranch north pasture next to me. Not a pasture I see on a regular basis. I was not looking forward to looking around this pasture. Thirty six sections under one fence. Quite the large, rough pasture.<br />n<br />nWe started driving around the big north and within a very short time found 11 head of our missing calves. We drove around for a little while longer checking out the south side of the pasture when I decided to let the hired hand get the ones we found in while I drove around looking for the rest. I was looking around the water holes on the north side when I decided to check the corner where the north end of my spring pasture meets my northern neighbor and the Padlock pasture I was in. Lo and behold, I discover that the fence in the corner into Padlock and my northern neighbor is all tore out like my other fence that the calves tore up while running. So now I knew where to find the rest of my calves.<br />n<br />nI went back and then we trailered out with horses to where I thought the calves were and sure enough, we found 8 calves in with the neighbors cows and they were all accounted for. We went ahead and cut them out and drove them home.<br />n<br />nSo here is how it went. Something spooked the calves in their pasture. They ran until they hit the corner probably about a 1/2 mile. They then kept going to the next fence, about 3/4 of a mile and took it out. For some reason at this fence they took a sharp left turn and kept going. About 4 miles later, yes I said 4 miles, they hit the fence on my northern end. Eight of them kept going straight and the other 11 took a sharp left turn into Padlock. How much further they ran then, I'm not sure.<br />n<br />nI've had some calves get to running before but never this far and do this much damage. The hired hand thinks a mountain lion was chasing them. I really don't think so. A mountain lion is not a distance runner like this. I think they just ran because they were scared. Not a single calf shows a sign of wire cut or anything else indicating they had run through 3 fences. I do know I wish I was a bird or something watching the whole wreck. It would have been interesting to see.<br />n<br />n<strong>No one succeeds without effort… Those who succeed owe their success to perseverance. Ramana Maharshi </strong>