Got any Cattle working advice?

Francismilker' signature gives the best advice ever on doing anything....
"The effectual fervent prayers of a rightous man availeth much".....

FarmerDavid, have you got an update for us?

I just finished putting halters on 4 6 month old or better heifers. I've spent 2 weeks trying to be their friend. I only have one that will let me scratch her neck and rub her sides. One more will eat hay from my hand, but that's it.

I don't have a chute. What I do have, is a pen made of heavy-duty round pen panels. The sides are not going to move. It is lined with cattle panels. I have a 12' gate that up to now has been closing them inside the barn. This gate has the cattle panel insides to it.

What I did: watched the youtube video from Missouri State U. I don't have a show stick. I do have a shepherd's crook. The gate was tied to the round pen panel at one end. I closed the barn door and closed the gate until it formed a V with the side of the pen. I would run a heifer up into the V until she stopped. Then I would run the crook (or you could use a rake handle) behind the calf through the panel on the other side. If they went farther into the V, I just pulled the cane out and re-inserted it behind the heifer again. I rubbed their necks a little to calm them down, and buckled on the halter and lead. Then I let them outside to get a little fresh air, and learn about giving to the halter. Nobody got hurt.

meant to get back before now but havent been online much. Would have gone better with 3 people but we got along ok with 2. We got the calves their first round of shots and put the nose weaners in them. Had intended to give the cows a shot and ear tattoo also but my help had to leave for work.

Ive been supprised at how well the nose weaners have been working. ONly one of the claves has lost any condition. Hopefully going to give the calves their booster shots thursday and then move the calves to a pen to fence line wean.

Hopefully ill be able to get the cows their shots and ear tattoos thursday also.

Ok so reworked the calves yesterday and also most of the cows. I don't have much for pens so were loading them and hauling them to a neighbors place to work. I have three cows that will not load. Any tips? They just stand at the back of the trailer and won't go a foot farther.

Feed in trailer.
Ramp if it's the step up they don't like.
Prod if necessary.
Use trailer door/ gates to funnel them.
(tie a calf in the front of the trailer and the cows will go in out of curiosity)

We load cattle every week, and sometimes it's easy, sometimes a big pain!

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SimpleAcres Farm
Back-to-basics Home Agriculture
http://simple-acres.com

Often times, using gates as funnel will result in an escape. But most people do not have the ideal 5 foot tall solid panels, so we must resort to gates. If you have plywood, fasten it to the gates, eliminating their view of possible escape routes. . I have found that cows will try to go over the top, so raising up a gate helps. But with that setup, bulls will attempt to escape under the gate.

I think this was the problem on the first attempt. Slow and easy worked pretty good, but didn't make enough noise at the right times. Alittle bànging on the gate and some noise behind them and they loaded up much better.

Use cur dogs. Catahoula or blackmouth curs. Make sure they've got experience working cattle. Basically what cur dogs do are being live fences. They bark and bark while circling the cattle. The barking is hypnotizing and calms down the cattle (after they're dog broke, that is) and the cattle will have to be moved with you on horseback from behind slowly while the dogs circle the cattle and keep them bunched up. Yes, the dogs will bite the cattle..that's only if they constantly fight or try to bolt. The smart ones decide to stay in the herd to prevent being barked at or bitten at. 3 dogs are a good number and the standard in the cur dog industry. Anything less than that results in dogs having to work harder than usual. I am going to get my catahoula cattle trained in the next month because I have a friend who has cattle that escape all the time and her catahoula hasn't been started on cattle either so we're teaming up to get our dogs started. It's quite easy because it's 100% instinct and if the dog doesn't have it...then they won't do it. My dog already works hogs so he will do good on cattle.

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Ted H

You may all go to Hell, and I will go to Texas.
-Davy Crockett

Good example of working catahoulas.

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Ted H

You may all go to Hell, and I will go to Texas.
-Davy Crockett

Interesting video, but not exactly the best example of keeping things calm and slow. Cattle will be too agitated. Would be okay in an emergency or when rounding up a stray.

Yep. I agree. Here is another video but blackmouth curs this time:

__________________
Ted H

You may all go to Hell, and I will go to Texas.
-Davy Crockett