halter breaking

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gertfan

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Indiana
I need some advice on halter breaking young calves. Our son has a 3 wk old heifer that we are trying to halter break for our county fair that begins on the 14th, she will go as a cow/calf pair. We have been working with her since she was about a wk old but with no success. She refuses to walk and gets mad then just lays down. We have never had this kind of problems with a cow/calf pair. :help:
Any suggestions or advice would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks!
 
I don't know if this will help you, this is what we do.

A 5 week old calf is not competitive. The cow has to be extremely good to get the pair to place if there is any competition. Sometimes we have competition, sometimes not. Sometimes we win, sometimes not.
So, we take it with the attitude that it's just for fun. The calf attracts attention from the visitors. We get to interact & teach visitors a bit about beef cattle. More visitors to the beef barn makes our beef department heads happy.

Keep working with it on a loose lead, get it to follow the cow. You might get it to lead pretty well in the next two weeks. But at least have some fun with a calf that young.
 
This will take a little practice. Have one of the kids lead the mother and another take the calf. The one on the calf should be behind the calf and just hold on like you were walking a dog (let the calf follow its mother). You may have to push a little. Have patience.

When you are setting the cow up, put the baby in front so that mom can see it. This will help keep her calm. As the calf gets older you may want to sety it up behind the cow. Some peolpe set the calf up beside the cow, I like to show off the udder if that is a good attribute to the cow other wise put the calf beside her.
 

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