Dangerous Cattle

[randiliana]

Well, our local sale barn just had our first sale of the season. Prices are darn good!! Sellers were all quite happy. But, as expected it brought out all the wonderful cull animals that one would expect for an All Class sale. There were pretty ones, and ugly ones, quiet ones, excitable ones, and downright dangerous ones.

One of my fellow workers got caught by a bull, fortunately, she has only a broken wrist to deal with. He was a manageable one, right up 'til he took after her. But, he managed to get her wrist before she was able to get over the fence. She was pretty lucky. They will fix it in the city in the morning.

We had 56 bulls to deal with today. 4 of them were the kind that you knew were dangerous, heads up, eyes wild. They are the easy ones to deal with, they make no bones about wanting to eat you. It is the other kind, the ones that look and act calm, until suddenly they just snap and take a run at you, or the horse, we had a couple like that. As usual, there were a few snarky cows, but not as many, or perhaps they weren't as bad as we usually see. And the yearlings, well there is often a few of those that are nuts, and they don't usually give any warning, they just run you over, if you're not fast enough to get out of the way. I just love working with a bunch of crazy yearlings, you never know what they might do.....

The funny thing about all the real bad ones, they were Angus or Red Angus. Another thing I noticed, of the 40 bulls I handled, probably not 5 of them were sound on all 4 legs. Guess that is what happens when you feed bulls out like you would feedlot steers. Most of them had blown out feet. A few were bad conformation. Most of the bad footed bulls were Angus, but there were a couple Herefords too. Just a few observations........

Just a reminder to think of everyone that is going to handle that mean and nasty sucker when you unload him at the stockyards. We treat them all like they might be nasty, but it is nice to be told.......

 

[bishopcattleco]

they dont usually act mean or crazy until they get to the salebarn.hotshots screamin,hollerin.not saying all people.but alot of salebarns i know hire young kids or punk kids who are stupid and have no clue what they are doing with cattle.

 

[hillsdown]

they dont usually act mean or crazy until they get to the salebarn.hotshots screamin,hollerin.not saying all people.but alot of salebarns i know hire young kids or punk kids who are stupid and have no clue what they are doing with cattle.

Post where you are located .

 

[randiliana]

they dont usually act mean or crazy until they get to the salebarn.hotshots screamin,hollerin.not saying all people.but alot of salebarns i know hire young kids or punk kids who are stupid and have no clue what they are doing with cattle.

Well, consider that we are in the middle of cattle country, and every one of the workers here either has cattle or grew up around cattle, and none of the workers under the age of 25..... Not a whole lot of screamin', hollerin' or hotshots being used in this sale barn. Just nasty cattle......

 

[I luv herfrds]

I already planned to warn them at the sale barn I am taking our bull to.
Told the lady at our regular barn I just did not like the thought of having that bull there for a long length of time and someone getting hurt by him.

 

[randiliana]

I already planned to warn them at the sale barn I am taking our bull to.
Told the lady at our regular barn I just did not like the thought of having that bull there for a long length of time and someone getting hurt by him.

That's good, it is always nice to know which ones have a proven attitude problem. I hope you didn't think I was aiming my post at you, just was mentioning what happened at work today.

 

[bluegoose 1]

Most of the sale barns in north Texas use paddles and hot shots to work th he cattle through the pens. They hire a lot are young kids I don't know if they think that it is smart or what but they beat the cattle pretty much. Usually by the time they get to the sale ring they are so wild they are crazy. If you buy to go back to the pasture It will take several weeks for them to settle back down. I've seen the barn owner call the ring men down for being to rough in front of the buyers but back in the pen area they don't pay no attention. Some good cattle go to the barn and come out monsters
Bluegoose1

 

[randiliana]

Amazing, do you guys not have animal rights people around there? Heck, the buyers around here don't like to see the cattle handled too roughly, and they will talk to the manager if they see something they don't like. We do use sticks, that is a safety measure, but the cattle aren't handled roughly. It takes too much time to deal with cattle that are worked right up, it is bad enough dealing with the excitable ones, they don't want them all like that. Plus, we handle a lot on horse back, all the penning is done on horse, and all the cattle are moved around on sale day with horses. The sorting is mostly done on foot, although we do, do some on horseback on sale days, just to speed the day up.

Here's some photos of a sale day. The only difference was this was a calf sale, not an All Class sale. As you can see not too many worked up animals here.

Cattle in their pens, waiting for the sale to start. The one side is empty so we have somewhere to put the cattle after they are sold.

Going in to bring some cattle out of their pen and up to the barn, these cattle will be sorted, Reds and Herefords.

Heading up the alley with a big bunch that needs sorting.

Waiting for the sorters.

A sorted or possibly one owner group, waiting in the barn for their turn.

The cattle sorters, as you can see they aren't too wild.

Bringing another bunch out to sort

After the sort, ready for the barn

Bringing a big bunch up to the barn,

Waiting again

More waiting

The sale ring

 

[bigbull338]

anytime we take rank mean cattle to the sale.we tell them before they are unloaded.so every1 can be ready when they start down the ally.when you use hotshots on cattle they get madder than snott.most of the sale barn workers work cattle on foot.they only use the horse to bring in the big bunches.in the ring the ring men stay behind a wall.so they wont get got to bad.the door men sitt on the fence to open an close the doors.

 

[Red Bull Breeder]

Bishop is in North Arkansas, Just north of Harrison. Sale barn at Harrison does not use hotshots.

 

[bigbull338]

i had a running buddy that hated people using hotshots on calves.an he tore into a barn worker that was using a hotshot as he unloaded his baby calves.an he told that guy if he didnt stop he was gonna whipp him all over the parking lot.an use the hotshot on him.an then have him fired on the spot.from then on that guy hid when he seen my buddy pulling up with calves.

 

[I luv herfrds]

No randi I didn't think this was aimed at me. I was just stating what I was already planning on doing.

 

[sim.-ang.king]

I can't believe they are selling black cattle there, I thought it was unlawful to get black's near
delicate herfords...

OH! What they are part herford, so i think that's alright. :lol:

 

[bishopcattleco]

Sometimes hotshots are more humane than sticks.At another salebarn i go to .There was a nice little brangus heifer i wanted to buy.A young kid say 18 was running a small crowd pen just as the cattle go in the ring.As soon as the heifer went in the small pen he started hitting her in the head.I had been watching this kid all day.I jumped off the catwalk down to where he was and chewed him out.To this day he has never done that again.Atleast when i am around.i did not buy the heifer.She was pretty gentle before that.

 

[Brandonm22]

The horses are part of it. A lot of people don't work cattle with horses. Suddenly they are in a crowded environment with horses for the first time ever and they freak. I went to a reg red angus consignment sale at a stockyard over a year ago. The cattle were real laid back and calm with people coming in and out of the pens. Sale time came and a bunch of them got real stressed going through the ring. A lot of that was due to the yard working them with horses.

 

[hillsdown]

The horses are part of it. A lot of people don't work cattle with horses. Suddenly they are in a crowded environment with horses for the first time ever and they freak. I went to a reg red angus consignment sale at a stockyard over a year ago. The cattle were real laid back and calm with people coming in and out of the pens. Sale time came and a bunch of them got real stressed going through the ring. A lot of that was due to the yard working them with horses.

My culls and commercial calves go to a sale barn like Randiliana is referring to and they sort with horses. I watch them sort and I watch them sell, my cattle are calm and collected as always and they have never been around horses .

 

[angus9259]

When you see a red bull or a black bull, how do you know it's a red angus or a black angus?

 

[randiliana]

Well, for one, that is the most common red or black cattle used in the area. Then, you just have to look at the body type and the head, and how much muscling they have to know from there. Plus, we usually know who they come from, and what cattle those people use....

Brandon, it isn't the horses working these cattle up. Most of them are used to seeing horses, and you can tell the ones that aren't.

Don't know why it is so hard to accept that some cattle are just down right dangerous, for no other reason than that they are......

 

[3waycross]

If I had to guess i would say that the more dangerous ones are throwbacks to their roots. Wild cattle are sure no day at the beach!

 

[Northern Rancher]

From one alley rat to another Randi I'm sure it's the salebarn staff who cause every snot slinging alley cleaner that gets unloaded. I wonder why the several thousand other cattle a person sorts in at the yards isn't like that. You can blow smoke up each others butts and blame the phase of the moon, the yard guys pony or whatever but the majority of unmanageable behavior in cattle is genetic. Be intersting to see the bloodline of those bad black bulls but I bet I can guess it.