It is pretty common around here to rope cow and pull the calf. Everyone has great working facilities but the fields and herds are pretty large. Trying to sort one cow out of the herd and drive as much as a mile to the corral it is just easier to rope her. But the vet is never called to pull a calf and we have enough real deal cowboys who know what they are doing.
That's the thing, it's not always practical or feasible to get a cow separated and to a working facility. Furthest point here may be close to mile and up hill several times both ways of that makes any sense. We do most of the calf pulling and most everything else ourselves. In extreme cases we'll call a vet, like the hydrops situation that ended up in a c section we had a few years ago. Then about 3 years ago had an odd heifer that we didn't get pelvic measured and she was t very big, combined with being bred to a calving ease bull that wasn't led to the hardest pull I've ever tried. We called a vet on that one but by being after hours by the time he got the message I'd already started making progress getting it out so he didn't have to come.
That's because you're in REAL cowboy country.
