Question re: dealing with separated pastures?

[Baymule]

I always talk to my animals. Even when I raise feeder pigs, I say Pig! Pig! Pig! when I approach their pen so I don't startle them or scare them. That paid off last year. It was raining, we had our granddaughters, DH took the oldest one to town for something she wanted. I looked out the kitchen window and a couple of sheep were wandering in the horse lot! I was wondering how in the world sheep got in the horse pasture, when I realized it was the pigs! I grabbed the kitchen scrap bucket and ran out the door to the pasture. I made sure their gate was open to their pen, calmly and quietly said Pig! Pig! Pig! and shook the scrap bucket. They slowly came to me and I walked them up the pipeline. Sentry (livestock guard dog) decided he needed to protect me from two big 300 pound pigs and rushed the fence snarling and barking. I told him HUSH--and he did. The pigs followed me to their pen and I gave them the kitchen scraps.

You are not going to MAKE a 300 pound pig do anything it doesn't want to.

Now if my horses got out, they would raise their tails like banners, joyfully gallop around, utterly ignoring me. Nah! Nah! Nah! YOU CAN'T CATCH ME!!

 

[misfitmorgan]

Our livestock are trained to come to us when they see us. They know we are the food people so all of our livestock will come running if they are out of their fence or we need to move them. Will they always go exactly where we want them....no but 9 times out of 10 they do and it makes life way easier. We didnt train them this way on purpose they pretty much trained themselves.

 

[Beekissed]

Most folks do what was already mentioned...either drive the livestock through lanes, down the road, etc. or, if too far away, they trailer them to the paddock. I live in a state wherein that happens frequently, that they have a winter pasture and a summer pasture and they are not near one another. They hire guys with stock trucks and trailers to help them get the herds back and forth.

In my situation it's short distances, so I use polybraid and push in stakes to create a lane or just shake some feed and hope I don't get trampled to death. Neither have proved reliable with stock that are not trained to either one, so I got myself a herding breed pup and hope to train him to help me move the stock.

 

[CLSranch]

Having 2 friends with horses usually helps.
Truck-cattle-horses