Feeding Cat Tails?

When we had our bull, he and April would squeeze out of the fence and go down into the pond and eat the cat tails.  

Since he went to Freezer Camp I have been amazed at how fast the cat tails have grown back.  SO I had the brilliant idea that I would let the cows out and encourage them to eat around the pond. We let the pond get 3 feet lower than normal the cows would only have to go over 6 inches of water to eat most of the cat tails.  I wouldn’t feed them in the morning until they went back into the pasture so getting them back in would be easy.    Little did I know that would be the only easy part!

I opened the gate wide enough for the girls to walk through and they just stared at me like what is this crazy lady doing.  Then I herded them out I got 2 out of the gate the other two ran around me like I was trying to spray them with fly spray.  Then the two I got out ran back into the pasture almost knocking me over. 

I decided to grab a handful of hay so the cows would follow me.  The cows followed me nibbling on the hay so I tossed what was left down by the water’s edge and went to let the sheep out.  The cows, seeing I had run out of hay and had stopped paying attention to them, decided to go back into the pasture.

This time I grabbed more hay, kicking the sheep out of the way I coaxed the cows back out of the pasture and left a trail of hay for the girls to follow to the cat tails then I decoratively hung the remaining hay on the cat tails so the cows would see the delicious hay and take a bite out of the cat tails and hay.  Rolo and April followed me to the water’s edge and I knew I was going to be successful.  I knew Onyx and Ruby would soon be jealous and soon start munching on delicious cat tails.  Then Rolo realized she had to stretch her head over 6 inches of water to eat the hay decorated cat tails and she bolted running as fast as she could back to the pasture!  The rest of the girls followed her.  Soon we will have to dig out the cat tails out of the pond because I am smart enough not to try this again.