newbie...just aquired a dexter heifer

littlekatzz · #1 12/29/12, 01:06 AM

xmas eve I got a 7month old polled dexter heifer. While not completly wild she isnt tame either. If I have sweetfeed she will sniff my hand, but is ready to bolt. I evently would like to breed her and have a milk cow. If I halter her up I can touch her all over...but it involves having to rope her first :/,& while im able to do so now I dont imagine I can always win if she tugs on the rope. What im looking for is direction on how to get a friendly sweet milk cow that will trust me.

haypoint · #2 12/29/12, 08:28 AM

Get her tied up and keep her tied up a lot. lead her in an area where the other end of the rope is fastened to an immovable object/post. So when she bolts, she can't get away. Allowing her to bolt once requires about a hundred times that she can't to get the "bolt" out of her.
If you teach her she can't pull away from you, when she grows up, she may not realize she could overpower you.
Lots of touching.

genebo · #3 12/29/12, 08:43 AM

You have to have a lot of patience. You haven't had her long enough to have your training take effect, yet.

Any time you move a cow to a new place, they need about 3 days just to learn where they live. It's quite possible that she is being weaned right now. This is probably the first time she has ever been separated from her mother.

I think it's remarkable that your young heifer is so cooperative when she's haltered. That shows that someone has been working with her. You need to keep up the training. Just remember that she won't be a milk cow until she is about 24 months old, so you have lots of time to teach her how.

Food is a very good training aid. Getting her to eat from your hand is a big step forward. It may help to put the food in a bucket. Set the bucket down and back away. Each day, stay a little closer, until she learns that you are not a threat. Work to get her to eat out of the bucket while you hold it. After that, put your hand in the bucket with some food in it. Teach her to eat out of your hand that way, then eliminate the bucket.

Once you have gotten that far, you will have learned a lot about your heifer, too. You will know what spooks her and what she likes.

Petting and stroking are the next step in training her. Don't pet her face like you do a horse. Her eyes are so wide apart that your hand disappears when you put it on her face. That can spook her.

As early as when she is eting out of a bucket, you can try to reach over her head and stroke the back of her neck. Gradually (over days) move around to her side as you stroke the back of her neck. Try to stand alongside her shoulder.

Work to pet her all along her back. Later stroke down her legs. Then work under her belly and begin to handle her teats. Pay attention to her as you train her, so you can determine when it's time to do the next step.

You want her to be fully accustomed to you handling her teats by the time she's heavily pregnant. You also want to have trained her to come into the area where you intend to milk her on a schedule, such as at dawn or at dusk. Teach her to stand in the position you want her to be in while you milk her, and move her hind leg back at your touch.

At that point you will have a heifer that is "trained to milk", but has not yet been milked. The final training can only come after she has had her calf and you begin actually milking her. That's when you find out how good a job you did in her earlier training.

Everybody that is reading this should now have a better understanding of why the farmer wants more money for his heifer that is trained to milk, and why a trained milk cow is so valuable.

The young heifer you buy is sort of like the puppy you bring home. Unless otherwise stated, it's usually completely untrained. It's up to you to turn her into a milk cow with skills.

Odds are, you are not a skilled milker, either. You and your heifer will develop together and forge a tightly bonded team. Hopefully, a team that will be together for years of mutual benefit.

Miss Kay · #4 12/29/12, 09:05 AM

What great advise. I love raising a heifer. By the time that calf comes, you two have spent so many hours together you know and trust each other. It's a lot of work but a labor of love, enjoy!

linn · #5 12/29/12, 09:34 AM

I would just keep a halter on her and when she comes up to eat sweet feed, fasten the rope to the halter. You can also leave the rope on her and let her drag the rope, when she steps on the rope she will learn to give to the pull and this will break her to lead. (You will need to make sure that she is in a small area and cannot get the rope caught on anything that will harm her). My first Dexter was pretty wild when we got her, but we put her in the feed lot with some other calves and she soon tamed down. I would touch her when she came up to eat with the other calves. It took a while and a lot of patience, but she is now as gentle as a lamb.

RockyRidgeFarms · #6 12/29/12, 10:28 AM

Totally agree with Genebo. I wish I had seen that post last year when I got my first Dexter heifer. Fortunately, mine was halterbroke whe I got her and was fine on a lead. But, getting the rope on her when she was out to pasture was a trick. I would have bring her into an enclosed area to feed for a few days till she got used to that. The shut the door behind her for a few. Then stand in there while she ate, and so on. Now she'll milk for grain and stand without tether. Still difficult getting a lead on her out in the field without enclosure, But I feel her wariness makes her a more protective mother and harder to steal so I'll live with that. Some recent cattle rustling going on around here and a papered, halter trained Dexter cow goes for $1600-2100 here.

DJ in WA · #7 12/29/12, 07:30 PM

The methods suggested will help, but the effect of genetics is greatly underestimated by most. The reality is that genetics determine the extent to which she can become a 'sweet' cow. For example, I bought two heifers the same age from the same farm, and they were presumably treated the same. I treated them the same, and soon discovered one to be much more calm and approachable. So I actually started to treat the wilder one more gently, but she never did become 'sweet', even though I ended up milking her. She would always try to get away when trying to put the halter on her. Eventually, she just wouldn't go as far, and would tolerate you putting it on. You always had to be very slow in your movements around her, or she would bolt.

This wilder heifer had a calf, and I could tell after day 1 that the calf would be wilder, as she would jerk away when putting your hand on her. Eventually I was able to halter break her, but it was never as easy as the naturally gentle animals I've had.

People try to blame poor disposition on handling, but I didn't treat them different, and if anything, I have to treat the wilder ones better. Had one heifer that loved to lick my shoes and be scratched. Certainly wasn't because I treated her better. Again, I can judge their disposition on day one, before I've had a chance to alter them.

I advertise the wild heifers for beef, but unfortunately, people still try to breed them. Likewise, others sell their wilder heifers as breeders to newbies or hobby farmers. Not every heifer should be bred. If the wilder ones are culled and used for meat, there can be great improvements in disposition, as evidenced by what the Limousin breed has done. I believe the angus breed is also measuring docility so producers can select for it, as docility is highly heritable.

http://www.nalf.org/pdf/2010/aug19/tackletemperament.pdf

Quote:

Using docility EPDs to drive selection and to cull problem animals, Limousin breeders put strong selection pressure on disposition and made remarkable gains to improve docility. Rapid genetic progress was possible given the strong heritability of 0.40 estimated for the Limousin breed.

Quote:

Limousin breeders have collected docility scores for nearly 200,000 animals. Scores range from 1 to 6 – where 1 represents the calmest, most docile temperament, and 6 represents the most aggressive. Table 1 explains the scoring system in more detail and gives the distribution of scores throughout the breed. Further analysis of the Limousin docility database shows a marked increase in the proportion of calm animals (scored as 1 or 2) – from 80 percent in 1996 to 95 percent in 2008.

NALF uses the docility scores to compute docility EPDs, which indicate genetic differences in the likelihood offspring will inherit genes for calm, acceptable behavior. The higher the EPD, the greater the opportunity of producing calm progeny. On the flip side, the lower the EPD, the more nervous the expected behavior.

littlekatzz · #8 12/29/12, 10:11 PM

Thank you. Im new to cattle so its nice to have experinced advise to follow. I wish I could have affored to get a experinced milk cow...but I was offered the heifer for $300 from a friend and it was in my budget ( no matter what my hubby grumbles otherwise) . She is already coming up to my hand to sniff for treats

. ill try again with halter training once our ground isnt a skating ring. But till then my plan is lots of bribes and letting hwr know im not a scary monster.

Dusky Beauty · #9 12/30/12, 07:05 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by DJ in WA

The methods suggested will help, but the effect of genetics is greatly underestimated by most. The reality is that genetics determine the extent to which she can become a 'sweet' cow. For example, I bought two heifers the same age from the same farm, and they were presumably treated the same. I treated them the same, and soon discovered one to be much more calm and approachable. So I actually started to treat the wilder one more gently, but she never did become 'sweet', even though I ended up milking her. She would always try to get away when trying to put the halter on her. Eventually, she just wouldn't go as far, and would tolerate you putting it on. You always had to be very slow in your movements around her, or she would bolt.

This wilder heifer had a calf, and I could tell after day 1 that the calf would be wilder, as she would jerk away when putting your hand on her. Eventually I was able to halter break her, but it was never as easy as the naturally gentle animals I've had.

People try to blame poor disposition on handling, but I didn't treat them different, and if anything, I have to treat the wilder ones better. Had one heifer that loved to lick my shoes and be scratched. Certainly wasn't because I treated her better. Again, I can judge their disposition on day one, before I've had a chance to alter them.

I advertise the wild heifers for beef, but unfortunately, people still try to breed them. Likewise, others sell their wilder heifers as breeders to newbies or hobby farmers. Not every heifer should be bred. If the wilder ones are culled and used for meat, there can be great improvements in disposition, as evidenced by what the Limousin breed has done. I believe the angus breed is also measuring docility so producers can select for it, as docility is highly heritable.

http://www.nalf.org/pdf/2010/aug19/tackletemperament.pdf

YES!! very good post! This explains very well some of my observations with different species too... "wildness" and "tameness" is supposed to be tied to natural hormone and endorphin production. (See Belyaev's Siberian Fox experiments)

Thank you for this whole thread-- I am selling a dexter/lowline angus heifer that is ready to leave mama and matches this description. Mama is a darling, but the kid is a little wild (we got mom and heifer when heifer was 3 mos and had never had a lot of human interaction in the big pasture.)
She's also not exactly "wild" (we got a halter on her) but she's nowhere near tame either.

I'm 4 mos pregnant and not allowed to mess with wild cows... so it'll be nice to share the information on this thread with the family that takes her on.

Farmer2B · #10 12/30/12, 07:51 PM

Dusky Beauty, that is interesting. In my experience with Thoroughbred Racehorses while temperament is certainly genetic it can be altered if enough effort is put into it. If there's a will there's a way.

Cows and Horses, however, are very different animals, so who knows.

Thank you for the information.

Dusky Beauty · #11 12/31/12, 12:03 AM

Warning: Thread derailment... this is a clip about the russian domestic fox experiment. It has practically nothing to do with cows, but it's an amazing explanation of the genetic link in tameness vs. aggression.