Editor's Note: This video is from November 2017.

ST. LOUIS — Six cattle garnered national attention in 2017 after a daring escape from a St. Louis-based slaughterhouse. Following a public effort to save them, the cattle have since been living peacefully at a farm in Jefferson County, about 40 miles south of St. Louis.  

The cattle made headlines in the early afternoon of March 30, 2017, after a handler mistakenly forgot to latch the trailer's handle at the Star Packing Company in the 3800 block of Cote Brilliante Ave. in north St. Louis. 

Police and employees from the Humane Society of Missouri chased the cows—affectionately referred to as the St. Louis Six—for hours throughout the surrounding neighborhood in an effort to capture them. The final steer, which onlookers named Chico for his spirit, was corralled nearly five hours later.

The cows were originally a part of a batch of cattle that were transported from Illinois and housed at the facility before being taken to a slaughterhouse near Grand Avenue. But after attracting attention from the public, the cattle were able to quickly change their fate.

According to a GoFundMe release on the rambunctious cows, the slaughterhouse allotted activists 24 hours to find a home for them; otherwise, the cattle would be slaughtered. 

A nonprofit called The Gentle Barn was able to step up to the occasion, but one problem remained—the animal sanctuary’s location in Knoxville, Tennessee, was not large enough to accommodate the six steers. 

The Gentle Barn turned to the online crowdfunding platform GoFundMe to fund a St. Louis property roomy enough for the rebellious cows. Over the course of two months, fans of the steers donated more than $400k to give the St. Louis Six their forever home. In the meantime, the bovines spent some time on a foster farm near Columbia, Missouri, before moving to The Gentle Barn’s 24-acre farm in western Jefferson County. 

Unfortunately, one of the six cows named Spirit became ill shortly after his harrowing escape and was euthanized when veterinarians said that he was unlikely to recover from the severe infection. In honor of Spirit’s memory, a pond near the cows’ current pasture is named after him.   

Today, the five remaining cows are cared for by volunteers and will spend the rest of their days in the comfort of The Gentle Barn’s sanctuary.

FOX 2 reached out to the farm for comment but has not received a response as of the date of publication.