I'm looking at some dart guns. Most likely a pistol to start. Any experiences with types, brands, where to buy etc?
Dart Gun
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snoopdog
Well-known member
I wouldn't do the pistol,even if you can walk up to your cows within pistol range now, I gaurantee you won't after they are shot, if they require retreatment. Get a rifle that uses 22 blanks and the pneu darts, the muzzleloader conversions don't require any paperwork. Buy once cry once.
Ky hills
Well-known member
We have a Pneu-Dart 178b air rifle type. It does pretty well for what we need. I don't think a pistol type would work as well. We got ours at the local Southern States store. They keep a good supply of darts too, so they must sell a lot of them. I just looked online to confirm what ours is and saw that Atwood's apparently carries them too.
Silver
Well-known member
I use a Medi-Dart cross bow. Only thing I could find that holds 35-40 cc per load. And reusable darts. No consumables other than the medicine.
There may be better options, but I have the capsure pistol. Used almost exclusively for pinkeye. I have retired from cow catching, on rare ocassions, I will catch for somebody I just hate to say no to. If one wants to fight a horse I will use 2 cc of rompun.
I second the Pneu-dart pump up type. Less stuff to keep up with and the darts are available and just about any feed store. Don't use mine very often but wouldn't be without it either, it's paid for itself many times over. Keep in mind you need to use a drug like Draxxin that has a low dose rate. Nuflor requires a couple darts.
BigBear56
Well-known member
I purchased a couple cows years ago and the woman I bought them from used the Medi-Dart brand. She said she loved it. I had no experience with one of these and I asked her how close she had to get to get a good neck shot and she said 25-30 yds. Well when I got the cows home, you couldn't get any closer to them than 25-30 yds. IMO it made the cows extremely skiddish. These same cows now come in the barn and let me pet all over them while they're eating. FWIW
Ky hills
Well-known member
BigBear56 said:
That may have been as close as anyone had gotten to those cows with or without a dart gun until you started feeding them. Just a possibility or a coincidence. We don't use our dart gun a whole lot just for a pink eye or pneumonia treatment if it's not convenient to get them up. Ours are fairly calm and you can get pretty close to most even out in the open. It usually doesn't cause a lot of commotion the affected animal will usually take off running a little, it gets the attention of the others but they usually don't react much. If trying to treat multiple ones then they may walk away and it becomes a little trickier as they get a little more concerned. Ours seem to get over it pretty well and no more aversion than getting them up and through the chute.
Silver
Well-known member
The medi-dart has been a game changer here. Our cattle summer miles from home out in the trees, and cattle tend to be difficult to rope from a saddle horse in the brush. Foot rot treatment is the most common use, it's not often but if a person takes the gun and medicine in the side x side when checking cattle or taking out salt it can be a very handy tool.
OP
OP
I'm buying it to get rid of some problem cattle that wont go any where near a pen. Hopefully when they hit the trailer they will be some one else problem.
When I was googling around last night the medication option kept coming up. They have YouTube videos of people doing it. Didnt realize how popular it was for that purpose.
When I was googling around last night the medication option kept coming up. They have YouTube videos of people doing it. Didnt realize how popular it was for that purpose.
kenny thomas
Well-known member
The issue here is not getting the right gun, it's getting the meds for the darts.
littletom
Well-known member
I have the capture with co2 works really well for me. I like the the throw away darts much better than the old school with the charge and barbed needles. Mostly use for pink eye and foot rot. When we used to have bat crap crazys we used a good bit to catch. You have to be carful on grown crazy cows. I killed a couple.
midTN_Brangusman
Well-known member
I have the Cap-Chur rifle, sure saves a lot of time not having to get one in the chute.
RDFF
Well-known member
I've been using the Cap-Chur long range pistol... and am very pleased with it. There's a learning curve to it, how much power is right for what size dart, and your distance from the animal, etc. It's worked great especially in winter, when I'm unrolling hay. Animals all standing nicely spread out along a long windrow, I just drive past them, stick the gun out the side window and treat those who are needing it from the cab... they never even consider that I'm going to treat them. I can stop alongside of her, and carefully place a shot in the BQA spot, from maybe 20' away.
Biggest issue is finding an appropriate drug to load into the dart... has to be "thin enough to dispense" (especially in winter), and has to have a "low enough dose" to fit into a single dart.... 12.5cc is about the largest you'll get.... so those two limit what's available to use. Cost of darts isn't "cheap".... but it's less than having to run them into a corral/lane/chute all the time, especially if you need to treat multiple times. They haven't seemed to "get onto me" so far at least (that I'm going to treat them... been using it two years). I really like it, because I can treat anybody anytime I need to... which means that they get treated earlier in alot of cases than they might if I had to run them in to do it.
Biggest issue is finding an appropriate drug to load into the dart... has to be "thin enough to dispense" (especially in winter), and has to have a "low enough dose" to fit into a single dart.... 12.5cc is about the largest you'll get.... so those two limit what's available to use. Cost of darts isn't "cheap".... but it's less than having to run them into a corral/lane/chute all the time, especially if you need to treat multiple times. They haven't seemed to "get onto me" so far at least (that I'm going to treat them... been using it two years). I really like it, because I can treat anybody anytime I need to... which means that they get treated earlier in alot of cases than they might if I had to run them in to do it.
GoWyo
Well-known member
What needs treated in the winter? Our biggest issues are occasional pink eye in summer and the late summer/early fall pneumonia cases and a dart gun would pay for itself pretty fast. It's on my list of equipment to acquire.
RDFF
Well-known member
There were a couple of cows with foot issues, and then this past winter we brought in 3 potloads of cows/late calves from Missouri in late November (to Minnesota), so we had some calf issues to deal with... Things went pretty well, better than I had expected honestly... but the December blizzard was hard on the smallest calves. It was mostly just hypothermia concerns... but of course, if they had any other stuff going on, that would make them more susceptible. So I was watching them pretty closely... and treating them as soon as I suspected something was going on.
I like the pistol personally (CO2 powered)... because it doesn't take up much room, so is easier to take along and "manipulate when you need to use it"......... and it certainly seems to do the job just fine. I do have the one with the longer chamber though, so it can take the largest dart, same as the rifle. I think too that the pistol is easier to "conceal" when walking through the herd... they're not as likely to see you "carrying"... and then pointing at them. I try to place the darts in the BQA spot as much as possible... so that means that they're "looking at you" more when you want to shoot them....
You need to get the "power setting" right for the size of dart you're using and the distance you're firing across... if you use too little power, the dart will sometimes fall short; if you set it too high, they will sometimes want to bounce back out/off of the animal. And if it does that, it will still dispense the meds... and that gets expensive with a drug like Draxxin.
