Any ideas?

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Lazy M

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Just have 3 spring calves left to wean. The stupid Mama cows refuse to bring them anywhere near the corral. The cows will happily eat feed if I bring it to them but won't budge to follow. Forget driving them- they take off to the forest if they suspect anything. In the past these particular cows have come up if I set up a portable corral out of panels in the pasture but this year they won't go anywhere near the panels. Been making attempts for almost 2 weeks now and I'm getting pretty aggravated. I'm considering darting the cows but that'd probably be a mess..
 
Water is a biggie - remove all sources other than a trough in the pen - if you can - eventually they will come.
 
Only feed in the corral, no exceptions, put the feed out and leave. Move their salt or mineral to the corral. Use the same vehicle every time. I've found the skeptical ones will go in if you leave, just repeat until you can watch and eventually close the gate. Let em get a little hungry. I've got one I call the babysitter, great cow and raises a great calf, but she'll waik right past the gate and take 4 or 5 calves with her to the other end .
 
Logar said:
Water is a biggie - remove all sources other than a trough in the pen - if you can - eventually they will come.

Good idea, but not possible at this place. Pasture is wide open and has a creek and multiple ponds.
 
snoopdog said:
Only feed in the corral, no exceptions, put the feed out and leave. Move their salt or mineral to the corral. Use the same vehicle every time. I've found the skeptical ones will go in if you leave, just repeat until you can watch and eventually close the gate. Let em get a little hungry. I've got one I call the babysitter, great cow and raises a great calf, but she'll waik right past the gate and take 4 or 5 calves with her to the other end .
That's my main problem: grass is still pretty good right now and they're not hungry enough to give up their calves for a little feed. I'm not complaining, it's definitely a really good problem to have. Still a bit of a problem, though. I plan to sale these calves in a special sale in mid December and would like to keep them all on the same vaccination schedule. May not be possible though.
 
Lazy M said:
snoopdog said:
Only feed in the corral, no exceptions, put the feed out and leave. Move their salt or mineral to the corral. Use the same vehicle every time. I've found the skeptical ones will go in if you leave, just repeat until you can watch and eventually close the gate. Let em get a little hungry. I've got one I call the babysitter, great cow and raises a great calf, but she'll waik right past the gate and take 4 or 5 calves with her to the other end .
That's my main problem: grass is still pretty good right now and they're not hungry enough to give up their calves for a little feed. I'm not complaining, it's definitely a really good problem to have. Still a bit of a problem, though. I plan to sale these calves in a special sale in mid December and would like to keep them all on the same vaccination schedule. May not be possible though.
I still have 2 from the previous calving season, it's not worth the worry, it will come around eventually. I have stressed over the same thing, and have come to that conclusion.
 
I usually don't have a problem with that but last year we did and I know your frustration. Last year we just had to wean as we could get them up. Finally got them all and culled out those cows that didn't bring their calves up. This year it was back to just calling them up and sorting them out.
I agree with Snoopdog, if you can't get them up in time I wouldn't worry too much. When winter hits and they get hungry enough you can get them in then. May not get them in time for a special sale that was our problem too, but it beats wasting time and energy running them.
 
This is how i do it. Buy a roll of that electric fence rope they use for horses. I use it in a paddock for a couple of weeks and make sure the electrics is running as hot as can be, even if i have to run an earth wire with it. This rope is so light two of you can easily hold it tight over 100meters. Get behind them and just walk them up, even though no electricity in it they wont go near it. You have to give the cows time to think, if they stop or get anxious stop for a minute to let them process what is happening. If one runs for it let it go and keep the ones in front of you going. This works really well for me.
 
I just caught a pen smart cows calf. Neither would follow a feed bag. I guess mama started weaning the calf so it had begun following other cows. Mama still didn't pen.

Understand your wanting to get the job done so maybe a couple good cowboys with a rope and horses are in order....problem with that is it's probably going to cost you more than the premium you are expecting from weaned calf program...
 
Redgully said:
This is how i do it. Buy a roll of that electric fence rope they use for horses. I use it in a paddock for a couple of weeks and make sure the electrics is running as hot as can be, even if i have to run an earth wire with it. This rope is so light two of you can easily hold it tight over 100meters. Get behind them and just walk them up, even though no electricity in it they wont go near it. You have to give the cows time to think, if they stop or get anxious stop for a minute to let them process what is happening. If one runs for it let it go and keep the ones in front of you going. This works really well for me.

Interesting idea. May be worth a try as the cattle are familiar with electric. If I can get them close to the corral. Too many trees and wooded areas to use this over much of the farm.
 
Redgully - I basically use the same system - all the time. I have polywire on a reel. I take an end, nephew holds the reel. We walk thru our cows and pick out the cows or pairs we want and just walk them up. I have only a couple cows that will try to dart under the polywire, but if you shake it and wait, they will turn. My cows are VERY broke to 1-strand electric fence.
Sometimes we are 20' apart, sometimes 100' apart.
If you generally use portable fencing, polywire, run a long fence from your coral out, so when you get close, you have a barrier that they have gotten used to being there, so you can hold them better into a funnel.
 
Can you move the rest of the herd to another pasture and feed the problem cows range cubes by hand?
 
Made some progress. Caught 2 of the 3 in the temp panel corral. Got one loaded but the other got it's head under the panels and crawled out before I could get it on the trailer. :bang: Maybe tomorrow. I had to use the 4 wheeler to separate the mama cows and run them off. Then the calves came with the rest of the cows.
 
Silver said:
It never ceases to amaze me how many people have cattle and don't have horses. :hide:

Have a few old nags but this time of year I usually only have about 1.5 hrs to work whenever I get home from my regular job before dark. It's so much quicker to turn the key on my 4 wheeler than saddle a horse. :tiphat:
 
Got those suckers! Probably ended up running them 3 miles but they finally gave up and ran into the lot.
 

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