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St. Louis Post-Dispatch

Lee Enterprises

Friday, January 3, 2003 11:08 AM CST
Five cows escape from pen, wander through south side of town

BY ROB STROUD, Staff Writer

CHARLESTON -- Police officers helped round up five escapees Thursday morning who had been found wandering through yards on the south side of town.

Those escapees were two steers and three heifers from a ranch on County Road 600 N, south of Charleston.

Teen-ager Natalie Smith of Coolidge Avenue said she woke up shortly after 10 a.m. to the sound of her mother, Debbie, excitedly talking on the telephone about having cows in their yard.

Smith said she immediately looked outside and saw five black cows milling around. Smith said she went from window to window to watch the cows and was amazed when one of them walked up just outside the laundry room of the house.

"I thought the cow was going to jump through the window," she said.

Mark Stoltz, who lives on south University Drive, said he noticed the cows at approximately 10:15 a.m. after he began shoveling snow out of his driveway.

Stoltz joined with police officers in an effort to herd the nervous cows across University Drive to the fenced-in storage yard at the Illinois Department of Transportation's nearby maintenance building.

"The cows didn't really want to go that direction," Stoltz said. "They were pretty happy in the yard."

After the cows were enclosed at the IDOT storage yard, they paced about amidst snow removal equipment and construction materials.

Dan Bailey and Andre Leachman, neighbors of cattle owner Scott Ebbert, arrived at about 11 a.m. and attempted to load the cows into a trailer. Bailey and Leachman had to postpone this task until later so the cows could calm down from their adventures.

Ebbert said when he reached the IDOT storage yard later in the afternoon, he found his Angus cows lying down and relaxing underneath evergreen trees.

The fencing for their pen was intact, so Ebbert said he is not sure how they got out. He said the cows, which weigh about 800 pounds each, made their escape sometime early Thursday morning.

"I'm just glad to get them back," Ebbert said, adding they are the gentlest cows he has ever raised. Ebbert said he thanks everyone who helped corral the cows and apologizes for any trouble they might have caused.

Contact Rob Stroud at rstroud@jg-tc.com

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