Living in Harmony...or maybe not!

So for the most part, all of our animals live together in harmony.  The chickens follow the cows around in the same pasture scratching through everything and eating bugs and it's never been an issue.  Our pigs have their own separate pastures which our guineas and chickens do frequent sometimes, but our pigs don't mingle with the cows due to the damage they can cause a pasture.  We would never want to take a chance of a cow breaking a leg due to our pigs using their unbelievably powerful noses to dig up the ground in search of treasure.  So while their pastures are next to each other, they don't usually cross paths.  Though when the piglets were smaller, they would escape and get into the cow pasture, and it was a sight to see the cows running up to the piglets looking curious and pretty confused. 

But our chickens have always been with our cows in the pasture and we do put a net up (which is moved daily) around the area so the cows don't eat the chicken feed and for predator protection for the chickens.  Those chickens have more room than they could ever use or explore each day as we hook together multiple fences for optimum range.  However, the other day, Dave drove up to the pasture to find a tense situation as a stand-off ensued.  The fence for the chickens was knocked down (probably from nosy calves) and the chickens of course wandered out.  A big deal?  Nope, not at all, it's happened plenty of times.  However, this time it was during the same week in which a couple of our cows had just had calves.  So while the chickens were aimlessly wandering around the field without a care in the world, they neglected to notice that some protective mommas weighing about 800 pounds were pacing and charging at them.  Those mommas were going crazy mooing and causing a ruckus while charging at any chicken that came too close to their calves.  One overprotective mother actually had one chicken pinned to the ground with her nose when Dave got there.  Mind you, we could walk up to the calves with no problem and even pick one up, but one of those chickens better not get too close again or it might be over next time.  Lesson learned for the chickens??  Probably not!