Calf Rope

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MudHog

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So I've come to the realization that I will need to learn how to rope and will also need a rope. What are some suggestions on ropes? I have my grandfather's old rope, but it is twisted up and very very stiff. No way I could actually throw it. Do ropes need to be oiled or waxed and maybe that is what my grandfather's rope needs? His rope stayed out in the barn.
 
Try stretching it. Put the loop around a tree and tie it to the bumper. Pull it a little. See if that helps.

If you get oil on a rope, it will forever get on your hands each and every time you use it.

I bought a rope at an auction years and years ago. It has lasted. I have actually used it a couple of dozen times. I am no roper. I have practiced and got to where I could throw it decent. Then I don't use it for years and years. It shows.
 
I've got a nylon calf rope that I got in the 60s. It's stiff but it will still throw a loop better then I can now. Burner is starting to come apart so I should fix that one of these days.
 
I have a saddle that I won team roping but it amazing how many loops I will miss when trying to catch a calf in the pasture. Every time I am doing that I am glad my old roping partners aren't there watching me. A real stiff nylon rope is generally a team ropers heel rope. A real calf rope is a lot limper and shorter. The calf rope takes more practice to keep the loop open but you will have less calves run through the loop. A stiff team roping rope you will really have to get the slack out quick.
 
Not a roper either. I was ok when I was a kid using my dad's old ropes, and have tried hard to learn how--really. Watched 'em out in San Angelo (they make it look so easy) had guys try to show me--teach me--practiced and never could get any good at all. One day, I nearly knocked my own self out with one of those stiff nylon ropes and decided right then I wasn't a roper and never would be.
A man gotta know his limitations..
 
Thanks folks. For me it would be for catching a calf like I am dealing with right now. I cannot throw a rope, so I'm depending on someone who can for me. Guy was supposed to come last Sunday, but didn't get finished with his Ranch Sorting competition early enough and now we trying for this weekend.

I can pen my herd up at a moments notice, but I need a roper. This calf is on the short stick as it is. One my attempt to catch her and if not caught, she's headed to the freezer.
 
on the ground.

For example, I can get within 8ft of this calf now with her facing me. I just cant throw to her. What my grandfather would do when he couldn't pen a calf or wanted to catch a cow is he would rope it and have the rope tied off to a post. Then he would use his tractor and another rope to pull it into the trailer. I'm trying to do that, but cannot rope her myself.
 
MudHog":398g2ma4 said:
on the ground.

For example, I can get within 8ft of this calf now with her facing me. I just cant throw to her. What my grandfather would do when he couldn't pen a calf or wanted to catch a cow is he would rope it and have the rope tied off to a post. Then he would use his tractor and another rope to pull it into the trailer. I'm trying to do that, but cannot rope her myself.

Have a sharp knife, preferably with a serated blade handy when you do this.
 
Save you and the cattle some trouble and buy a dart gun and tranq her. Anyone with cattle needs a good dart gun. I bet we shoot 59 darts a year. Most meds but some to knock them out and catch them.
 
jedstivers":3w3livee said:
However long it takes to get there is how most have been done.
We've never sent one right then usually just catching one that's out. I've never need to check on it.

I'll give the sale barn a call tomorrow and see what they say. I've thought about tranquilizing this heifer before, just wasn't sure if she could go straight to the barn or had to wait a certain amount of time. That would be the biggest turning point for me.
 
Thanks Bigfoot for that statement. Lightbulb went off so I searched google and found the following:

Rompun 20 mg/mL
Warning

TREATED CATTLE MUST NOT BE SLAUGHTERED FOR USE IN FOOD FOR AT LEAST 3 DAYS AFTER THE LATEST TREATMENT WITH THIS DRUG.


Now some may count the time they are at the sale and whatnot as three days, but I wouldn't be able to sleep at night bringing a calf within that 3 day window. Not to mention the receipt you sign is acknowledging the cattle are safe for sale.

Looks like I'm back to roping. Anyone want to buy any tickets to the rodeo? :lol:
 
I could keep her, but she would be kept in the trailer as that is the only place I feel comfortable that she cannot get out of. She'd bust through my pen or tear it apart.

Sale barn locally to me only keeps cattle on water and no hay. 5 days before sale would equal lose of body weight. Only sale barn around here that keeps the cattle on hay and water is an hour and a half away. I suppose I've never done that (send an animal to sale after being drugged and using the sale barn lot as the withdrawl period) and that doesn't so much seem right to me.
 
People will jump me for this, but we all do what we do. There is no way that calf is going to slaughter anyway. Even if it was, it wouldn't get there in 3 days. If you don't have anything that will hold it, just leave it on the trailer. You can hay and water it there. I'm thinking if you can get 8 feet from it, the thing can be caught without all the hupla anyway.

Be a good guess, you'd better catch it the first time you throw a rope. If it's very gamey at all, it won't be hanging around for a second shot. I'd also suggest you rope it's back leg. If it all goes south, you want won't have a wild calf running loose with a neck rope on. Possibly a neck rope with a fence post tied to it to drag :D it will eventually kick out of a leg being roped.

We all work within the parameters of what we have to do, and what we've got to work with. If this is the way you guys do things, I'm all for it. Especially if it's worked before, but it's not as hard as many people think it is to kill a calf necked to something. Especially when you start dragging it. You can neck a cow with a horse, and take it to town and back if that's what you want to do. Give and release, drive instead of pull. I'm afraid your going to kill it your way.

I'm normally really good at not giving my full blown opinion, but if you don't have very many head, you don't want lose one this way.
 
I agree---he'll have one chance at this if the calf is a high head flighty thing. Last one I had dealings with like that went thru 3 of my sister's fences when it left where I was and just kept going out thru the National Forest--never saw it again. (Sister just said "good riddance" and was happy it was gone)

MudHog--Used to be lots of ropers over around Rayne, East of Abbeyville, and Sunset too. I never saw anything but cane fields around Nueva Iberia tho. Call or go by your local sale barn--they should know someone close to you with a horse and can rope.
 

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