Calf lassoo

[eccentricfarmer]

Had the exquisite pleasure of roping a highlander calf last nite. The bruises (mine) are still coming out. It put itself into a shed and lassooed it as it was trying to get out. Next the 'babysitter' (not the mom) decided i really should not be messing with one of her charges. Handful of calf that was not getting away since lasso had gone over the head and around the body and ended up on the 1 rear hoof. Eye ball to eye ball with mom and no sticks or hands avallable and she was pissed off!!. Confused her enough by yelling until the other human helpers could arrive to get her off me and out the gate and she proceeded to walk around the fence and do another face off with me. Calf was strong enough to pull me on my heels for a little pasture skiing!! [img]/forums/images/icons/shocked.gif[/img] The dog kept the rest of the herd (16) off of us!!

Upshot, calf went off to neighboor in trade for some meat goats, start of a herd.

The bull (2000#) easily cleared a 5' fence to escape!

[egon]

Usually a 2000 pound bull just walks through the fence! [img]/forums/images/icons/grin.gif[/img]

Egon [img]/forums/images/icons/grin.gif[/img]

[Bird]

</font><blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr />
Usually a 2000 pound bull just walks through the fence!

[/ QUOTE ]

Or anywhere else he wants to go. [img]/forums/images/icons/laugh.gif[/img]

[roho627]

DARN that would have been a KODAC MOMENT! Wheres the PICs! Never have a camera nor a camerman when YOU need one! Had a run in with a 1500 lb rodeo bull bout 3 to 4 months ago &amp; may I say I come out on lossin end of that!!

[eccentricfarmer]

Believe me the mind pic i have is all forehead (boss) horns eyes and nostrils, and all the behaviors that go with pissed off cow EXCEPT the pawing of the ground. Shorts were ok but not by much, was thinking of evacuating and then getting the he?? out of there but no place really to go.

The bull is a nice guy ( for a bull), never trust a bull, but overall pretty calm and collected. I am sure he did not want to wreck a perfectly new (last year) red brand no sag fence and t posts about every 6-7', but it would explain the back line fence having to be pushed back up the other week. Maybe he did not like the field corn on the other side and just jumped back to tell the rest of the herd not to bother.

Either that or he was tired of the girls complaining. (and no i was not disturbing the herd at that point, although they knew i was there for sure. [img]/forums/images/icons/shocked.gif[/img]

[Pat]

My bud and I together could barely hold a lassoed calf we wanted to tag and band. I do have some pix somewhere as My SIL was there when we worked the herd through the chute for deworming. It wasn't supposed to be that hard but the little bugger was extraordinarily strong.

The next one I just dived on its hind feet in the pasture and got dragged a ways before he pulled away. This is the first time a calf ever escaped my "death grip" but I guess it was for the best, given the bruises I got before it got away. This would have been a better Kodak moment but no camera person.

My bud used to team rope and is Ok with a rope but assumes we don't need pigging strings (I know we do) so I jerked my belt off one time and used that on the calf's feet. I will not be going after a calf again unless I have some pigging strings.

Never had a bad experience with one of our bulls but... 'tother day I was face to face with "Curly" about 1500 lbs or so of black Angus. He is totally laid back and composed unless after a female or you have feed poured out in front of him. Well, we were about 6-8 ft apart in a pen when one of the cows mounted him and startled him so he lunged forward. I got the heck out of the way and he turned before he would have trampled me (probably) and all was OK but it definitely startled me and taught me yet another thing to not do. Don't stand close to and directly in front of a bull in a close space with other cattle in proximity.

Had I been looking away or distracted or a bit slower or... I could have been accidentally walked on and that can break a lot of bones.

Pat

[tessiers]

Not to take over but I just got in from a similar experience.

Just bought a bull calf 300# or so

Got it home and decided to put it in the pasture. My wife said you should put it in a box stall for a few days, to which I said he has been in a pasture and knows what the elec. fence is he will be all right.

Upon release he went straight through the fence and ran up the road 1 mile +- to a dairy farm, where he went through their fence and found some new cows to hang with, I guess mine were not good enough for him.

We ended up putting 50 head of holsteins in the barn just to get him in there and then proceded to chase the bull around inside until he got cornered in a calving stall. The farmers wife lost her shoe twice in the pasture and it took 5 of us about two hours to get him back in the trailer.

Every muscle in my body is sore and I still have to go repair fence in several places (mine and theirs) as soon as it gets light enough to see out. Thank god for friendly neigbors. I don't know how I will repay this one.

The worst part is my wife is going to be saying I told you so for about 10 years.

[jml755]

Reading these posts kind of takes the sting out of us "non-cattlemen city folk" going to the store and paying $3.99 for hamburger [img]/forums/images/icons/wink.gif[/img] Standing in line at the market sounds a lot safer. (But probably not as much fun). [img]/forums/images/icons/smile.gif[/img]

[eccentricfarmer]

Owner of herd said Mom was just being a good mom and maybe it was her calf. Not so, she now has picked up 3 other calves to babysit and will pick me out along the fence to stare and moo at me from a couple hundred yards away. I am too attached to my body parts to see if she really means it or not. The bull will angle his body along the fence when he is eating to make sure he has eye contact with me as i walk down the fence line!!

Well, babysitter has an appt with the 'maker of little white packages' next month, she is too dangerous now to have around and we will change the feeding around so get a good shot at her (in the past the subject of intense scrutiny has perished instantly in some cases while still swallowing grain) and a substantial fence between me and the bull (he is worth too much at auction). I do not want her genetics passed on (her line had a history) and will be using a backup shooter just in case.

Pat... this calf found out it could touch its back shoulder, so it could not call out for mom to come, guess when the eyes roll back, they will be calm for a bit. Used to wrassle humans for about 20 years (drug addicts and such, so, human in form but not necessarily in mind) and worked on them as well. I do have another calf to catch but i think will try to reduce the herd a bit more before doing that.

But it is ok, going to try meat goats for a while. Guess too old to have things that want to (and can) can kill me (not worried about getting killed, its that time frame of when injury starts and finishes 0. Traded a calf for a full blood boehr buck and doeling. Hope they taste as good as beef sooner or later. Can only do so much between now and winter. Besides i think they are more entertaining than cows. [img]/forums/images/icons/smile.gif[/img]

[Pat]

Yet more as the beat goes on...

Yesterday I spent 4 hours trying to get one cow and one calf (weaned and not her's) into a pen. had to move them about half a mile through 4-5 gates. What a pain. Finally I lured the herd away with feed so the handful I wanted to move would be less interested in staying with their buddies.Finally I got the calf, the cow of interest and a couple calfless cows (innocent bystanders) moved to the N-E 20 acres of my place.

This AM the 4 came to me in expectation of bing fed. I managed to get the 2 of interest in the pen and the other 2 rejected back into the pasture by luring them with a bucket of feed.

(This was just the prelims!)

Now to get 1200 lbs of Angus cow through a narrow alley, through the squeeze chute and into the trailer when she is not interested in complying with my wishes. Ended up with the cow in the chute backwards and she would not budge an inch backwards. I opened a side gate and let her into a 8x12 "holding cell" off the alley running to the squeeze. I got the calf to walk up the lane through the squeeze into the trailer fairly easily and closed the mid gate in the stock trailer. Then wondered what to do with the cow.

This thing is about as easy to man handle as an Abrams M1-A2 battle tank. One good kick and you could be injured or dead. Eventually she got the idea of going into the chute and into the trailer and I risned getting close to her from behind to slam the sliding door of the trailer closed. What a hassle. Just as I finished my friend drove up and says, if I'd known you were going to do it without me I coulda stayed home. With any luck I will NEVER EVER have to deal with such a large animal alone.

The next friend helping friend activity is loading his 2000+ lb Angus rent-a-bull into his trailer to return it (lease end.) It is so large it will not fit through his loading chute so we will have to get creative. I would put the cable of my front mounted winch through the front of the stock trailer and out the back and lasso the dude and slowly winch him into the trailer but that is probably way too easy for my friend so we will have to do something more cowboy like. I can hardly wait.

His previous rent-a-bull was literally crazy and dangerous to be around. The owner said it wasn't and went into the pen with it (for a few seconds) and then came out over the top rail in in quite a hurry, narrowly missing being run down. (Justice) Unfortunately there was something wrong genetically with that crazy bull and my friend lost two cows in calving and 3 calves total. I had a different bull, no losses, and this spring neither of us have had any problem besides one still birth ( the cow I loaded up today)

Soon we get another opportunity to calf wrestle as the whole herd (32 now including 8 calves and two yearling heifers) will be worked through the chute for shots, pour-on de-wormer, and such. I have a couple cows with horns which will be trimmed again. I didn't notice the horns when they were 400 lb calves in the sale ring (NEWBIE) and they are such good mothers with great instincts and raise such fine calves (no horns) I will keep them.

Pat