The Red Polls Have Arrived!

I've worked toward this goal for five years now and on a Monday morning, I received a shipment of five purebred cows, all the way from Virginia:

They were stressed, frightened and dirty from their long, crowded and chilly ride to the north country and fled the stock trailer for the far end of the field, where they immediately began eating grass as if they hadn't eaten in a long time. Well, I suppose they hadn't as it had been a long ride:

I thought they were a bit skinny, and their former owner agreed that they needed grain and minerals to fatten them up and prepare them for calving in the spring:

The girls chowed down on grass but could find no water. There was a large stock tank near the barn, but they hadn't found that yet:

I put bowls of sweet feed inside the barn to tempt them. They were indeed tempted, but refused to go in. So I moved the bowls out onto the grass and then they ate. I also spread a five gallon bucket full of apples on the grass but they didn't seem interested:

I didn't have the paperwork yet, so I didn't know their names. I did note, however, that the cow with ear tag #35 was calmer, friendlier and more inclined to go exploring. She found the stock tank and then the others followed, sucking up at least fifty gallons:


They explored all along the fenced borders, getting to know their new home:

One cow tripped as she walked across some tall weeds and I knew at once there had to be some old fencing buried beneath the grass. Indeed there was, and I spent a whole day removing it and bundling it for discarding. The cows wouldn't come close, but they watched me with interest:

Oddly, their coats look muddy brown sometimes and red at other times, depending on the light. And the photos I took when their coats looked brown showed their coats to be red. I found that all very odd, but at least it explained why photos I'd seen on the internet showed cattle of both colors:

The girls will need a lot of feed and a lot of attention to tame them, but that's what I've been looking forward to for so long. They had relaxed considerably and were feeling more comfortable after just one night in their new home:

I followed them around with the tractor sometimes, snapping photos where I could. I considered whether that was harassment, which I didn't want to do, or getting them used to me, which I did want. By observing their behavior, I decided that it was the latter:

So now I have a small herd of five young cows. I'll keep you posted on their progress: