halter breaking calfs

[maryjanesfarm]

i have 12 one year old dexters that i am holding for somone at my farm while they get theres built. they are going to be dairy cows and i thought i might get them tamed. they are pretty skittish but i can get close enough to feed them grass by hand. a friend of mine mentioned somthing about halter breaking them. any info on this?

 

[Crowderfarms]

i have 12 one year old dexters that i am holding for somone at my farm while they get theres built. they are going to be dairy cows and i thought i might get them tamed. they are pretty skittish but i can get close enough to feed them grass by hand. a friend of mine mentioned somthing about halter breaking them. any info on this?

I'm not coming to help. :lol: I think someone has waited too long to do that.

 

[Susie David]

Good luck Mary Jane...we usually start the halter breaking when they hit the straw for the first time. At one year old they are pretty well set against the process even, the ones that allow you to handle them. I don't attempt it myself...at my age the cow is stronger than me even a dex. Dairy cows to boot.
I'm sure that there are others on the boards that have more experience in this area...DMc..the David part of the operation.

 

[milkmaid]

Two words:

Lotta work. :lol: :lol:

Seriously though - if they're going to be dairy cows, and dairy cows in the milking herd only, not show stuff, there's no reason to halter break them. My boss really doesn't like his milking cows tame. They are easiest to work around when they aren't necessarily afraid of you, but still wary and with enough respect they'll move away when you approach. Tame cows just stand there and refuse to budge. :lol:

I've tamed and halter broke some of my cows to a certain point - that point where I can easily catch and lead them to a new pasture if I need to, but they're "wild" enough I can still herd them if I don't feel like putting a halter on. I've halter broke a couple older cows that were around 5 or 6 years old, straight from the milking herd and never had a rope on, but I wouldn't recommend it to anyone. LOL.

Oh...and halter breaking TWELVE at once? :shock: I'm a little "different" in that I like to be able to lead my cows around or walk up to them in the pasture to check them over, but even I wouldn't try halter breaking twelve at one time. :lol: One or two maybe, but no more.

 

[Workinonit Farm]

Maybe some folks on The Show Board of these Q&A boards could help you out. Try posting there as well.
When I got my Jersey, she was a year old and very shy. I put her up in a small lot to herself, and "visited" her 2x daily with a little sweet feed as encouragement. I finally got her into a headgate where I could put the halter on. After many weeks of spending time with her (with the sweet feed) I was finally able to handle her enough to "tame" her down. She's 5 yrs. old now, can be handled every which way, feet, etc. can be milked all around and has made a wonderful nurse cow.
Good luck.

Katherine

 

[J. T.]

Twelve?!?!? Buy 12 rope halters, confine the critters and halter them. From here on, there's different viewpoints. I've done both the following methods. Both require keeping them in a small pen. 1.) Let the calves drag the lead to get used to wearing a halter. When they step on it they will stop and this gets them used to the halter tightening up when you try to control them. After a couple of days, tie them to a stout board fence and let them fight it out. The second method is to tie them immediately after haltering and let them fight it out. Don't tie them so high that they'll hang themselves if they fall. You need to watch them to make sure they don't get into any trouble. Watch their muzzles for swelling. Always, feed them a little so they'll associate the halter with something pleasant. While they're tied, talk to them. Make friends with them. Move slow and talk softly. Also, play the radio while they're tied. It helps calm them down. After you gain their trust, begin brushing them. Only halter and tie them for a few hours a day. Work with them in the morning and the evening. Of course, with twelve calves, you've got your hands full. But at the very least halter them, tie them, and feed them while they're haltered. They'll eventually come around. Good Luck!

 

[TxCoUnTrYbOy]

I dont think I would even waste time trying to halter break them. A couple years ago I had a Dexter steer that was a little over a year old that never was halter broken. He never would take to kindly to the halter. Of couse, didnt help that the sucker had some massive horns for his age, but still, never could get him halter broken. With my little experience, I would say instead of trying to halter break them just get them more used to people enough to where they dont care if your around.

 

[Rustler9]

Twelve would be a hand full to break but I agree with J.T.-confine them all and gat halters on them. Let them drag the leads for a few days, then tie them to a fence. I'm breaking two Longhorn heifers for showing right now. One is a year old and the other is eight months old. They've done pretty well so far. Keep them tied up for a few hours, give them each a small pan of sweet feed or other grains that they like, after they eat they'll be thirsty. Lead them one by one to the water trough, once they get the hang of it they'll lead. let them drink their fill then lead them back to the fence and tie them up. You might reward each heifer with a range cube so they'll learn that they can be rewarded for obeying. If you can tie each one up for about half a day each day it will work. It's alot of work but it can be done. Good luck and keep us posted. BTW-I'm not a pro at this but this has worked for me.

 

[maryjanesfarm]

thanks for the info, im really new to this. my mom (maryjane) just got these cows a month ago. we've had two angus cows for about the last year and a half that we were going to butcher. raising them was pretty simple, there was only two of them. now we have all these dexters, thankfully they are not ours so any taming we do is out of the kindness of my heart. the censes seems to be that if they are tame enough to eat grass out of my hand we can milk them? once again thanks all.

 

[RichieMaGoo]

I've heard that the best way to halter-break a calf is to tie it's halter to a pope [edit- unless you live in Rome, you might want to make that "a rope", not a pope!] attached to a donkey- wherever the donkey goes, the calf will have to follow...and before long, he gets with the program and you'll be able to take over the reins.

Whether or not this plan would work on one year-old cows....I don't know...but I suppose if you had a good sized donkey it might.

I'd be tempted to give this a shot- I think it's the only real chance you'd have a breaking a cow at that age. (and as an added bonus, the donkey would keep the coyotes away....and they cost nothing to keep- as they'll do just fine on forage.)

 

[milkmaid]

the censes seems to be that if they are tame enough to eat grass out of my hand we can milk them?

Milk? Do you mean with milking machines or by hand? If you're talking with machines in the milking barn their attitude is irrelevant to CAN or CANNOT :lol: although a semi-docile attitude is the easiest to work around.

If you mean by hand, tame or not tame only relates to how easy they are to work around. Some cows just plain don't like being milked and it doesn't matter if they've been in the milking herd a week or 5 years.

Tame...can mean a lot of different things to different people. I have a nurse cow I can walk up to in the pasture, run my hands over her, strip out each quarter to check for mastitis while she stands placidly, scratch her head, etc. She's not afraid - To me, that's tame.

On the other hand I have several calves that will come up to the fence and cautiously take hay or grain from my hand, but if I cross the fence they won't let me touch them. Just being able to feed them doesn't mean they're tame.

As far as halter breaking, I don't like keeping a halter and/or rope on 24/7. Just don't like the possibilty of it getting caught on something. I'll rope, snub, halter and tie the cow/calf each time I work with them, and let them loose after I'm done. I take a few weeks before I try leading them - the first step is to respect the rope and the post. If they don't respect that you'll have a cow that will take off at any moment for any reason because they know you can't stop them - been there done that. LOL.

Eventually they do get to the point that they'll stop the instant that rope settles over their head, and then to the point you can walk up and halter them. Takes time. I've always felt that 'tame' and 'halterbroke' go hand in hand. You can have tame without halter broke but not truly halter broke without being tame. Make sense?

 

[maryjanesfarm]

thanks for your answers milkmaid and richie, the guy who we are holding the cows for is planning on milking them with a machine once he gets his pasture fenced in. my dad and i are more then happy to look after his cows because he bought us enough hay to get us through the winter for our two angus cows, and he bought the dairy pasturizing equipment from my mom that she had bought planning on starting a dairy. i think that would take more time then we have to run a comercial dairy so i'm glad to hand off the project to somone else. when i say they are about a year old that is just an estimate. it could be more or less a couple of months. as for halter breaking them that seems like a bit of overkill and from what i hear a ton of work. for now i have just been going down in the pasture every day and just getting them used to a human. sounds like that sould be enough?