How do you catch them all?

[skyhightree1]

In my life, I have never been able to catch every cow, calf, and bull on my place at the same time. That is a feat that I have truely never accomplished. I've put an honest effort in it many times. Just can't do it. I calve about 10 months out of the year, so I have calves on the ground from 5 days old to 8 months old.

Some odd hang up on here, about posting numbers, so I usually avoid it. Guess I'll have to spill the beans. As of today, I have 84 cows, 51 or 52 calves on the ground, 3 bulls, and 9 short bred heifers.

I need to do some weaning, some sorting, and some culling. I've tried all week, to catch as many as I can at once. Kinda successful, and kinda not.

My approach:
I put 50 pounds of feed in the catching pen. Do it everyday, for a few days. Just pour in my troughs, and go on like nothing is going on. They get wise, and start coming. After 3 or 4 days of that, I'll put out 50 pounds of feed, and scatter 2 bales of alfalfa hay (that holds in there longer). This whole process, will go on for a week or more. I eventually build up to getting 75% (or a little more) in my catching pen all at once. The 25% or so I don't get is enough to discombobulate the whole thing. I don't have a calf, that goes to a certain cow, or vice versa. I end up with about half what I need to be successful.

Starting tomorrow, I'm going to go back to my triedand true method. Keeping mineral in the catching pen, and nabbing the ones I can, as I can. This process will take til fall.

I also have the ability to catch any animal, at any time, with a horse. I'll end up resorting to that on a few. I don't like it, but it happens.

At the risk of sounding dumb, how do you people catch the entire herd at one time? I just don't seem to have the skill set to do it.

I easily catch everything soon as they see me there running to me to get brewers grain.

 

[BRYANT]

Had an old cow man tell me '' never check your cows with out giving them some cubes (feed) even if it not but just enough for them to get a couple bites'' this is for cows that don't see people every day. I am sold on that I pull in to a pasture and blow my horn and they run for the lot and be packed up around the feed bunk ,you have to push them out of the way to feed .but they know there aint going to be a lot of it so they better get there and be waiting or they will miss out on it

 

[TexasBred]

This thread reminds me what I love about replacement heifers. When I turn them out there is no doubt in my mind I can call them any where I need them. They are the first ones usually fighting to get in the pens.

surely your not talking abut then ''ol' mean - wild -fence jumping - people killing Brahmans are you. :lol2:
I think I could take a feed sack and lead my ol Brahman cows a mile down the road if I needed to.

You can do with with about any hungry half starved old cow. :hide:

 

[BRYANT]

This thread reminds me what I love about replacement heifers. When I turn them out there is no doubt in my mind I can call them any where I need them. They are the first ones usually fighting to get in the pens.

surely your not talking abut then ''ol' mean - wild -fence jumping - people killing Brahmans are you. :lol2:
I think I could take a feed sack and lead my ol Brahman cows a mile down the road if I needed to.

You can do with with about any hungry half starved old cow. :hide:

there is a big advantage to starving them
1) much easer to lot up 2) Will follow you for feed, no need for stock trailer. 3) less money in calves when sold = more money made 4) if you have to put out hay they will eat any old hay you can find some times even free hay. 5) poor cows people will not steal . they think they all have Jones. :cboy:

 

[C-Ranch]

I have a corral (224' x 180') that we herd all the cows and bulls into. Then we sort to different pens as needed. Works pretty good, but once in awhile you get one that turns her tail and heads for the willows and creek, but normally we get them all. Currently I'm fencing off some new ground to house first calf heifers and the bulls (separately) so we can just open a gate and push them into the newly fenced area and into the corral on 4 wheeler which I hope saves from chasing them all over and getting them worked up when needing to work them.

 

[GAonmymind]

Every time I call them from the oldest cow to the youngest baby calf they come. Let them in at feed trough side and exit through the chutes. Every time the same. Key is the feed trough being in the corral and exiting through the chutes.
Man, I hate new herd bulls! He almost jumped the fence to get out. Did not want to go through the chute. Made the cows skittish. The cows know this routine - eat then spray on exiting- no problems with them. Finally, able to push the bull into the chute by walking him that way. Then with the gate wide open he started towards me instead. Bad idea. Let him have a face full of fly spray. This new bull is nervous and high strung. Hope he settles or he will be gone. I am too old for this.

 

[TCRanch]

Every time I call them from the oldest cow to the youngest baby calf they come. Let them in at feed trough side and exit through the chutes. Every time the same. Key is the feed trough being in the corral and exiting through the chutes.
Man, I hate new herd bulls! He almost jumped the fence to get out. Did not want to go through the chute. Made the cows skittish. The cows know this routine - eat then spray on exiting- no problems with them. Finally, able to push the bull into the chute by walking him that way. Then with the gate wide open he started towards me instead. Bad idea. Let him have a face full of fly spray. This new bull is nervous and high strung. Hope he settles or he will be gone. I am too old for this.

A face full of Fly Ban is the only thing that saved my husband from a young, high strung bull a couple years ago. Sold him the next week.

 

[Bigfoot]

Little at a time, I'm getting there. Caught a cow that needed culled, and weaned a 7 month old steer, this afternoon.

 

[TexasBred]

surely your not talking abut then ''ol' mean - wild -fence jumping - people killing Brahmans are you. :lol2:
I think I could take a feed sack and lead my ol Brahman cows a mile down the road if I needed to.

You can do with with about any hungry half starved old cow. :hide:

there is a big advantage to starving them
1) much easer to lot up 2) Will follow you for feed, no need for stock trailer. 3) less money in calves when sold = more money made 4) if you have to put out hay they will eat any old hay you can find some times even free hay. 5) poor cows people will not steal . they think they all have Jones. :cboy:

I usually have to put half a dozen rocks or more in the bag and shake it to get mine to pen. The too smart to go for the old empty bag trick. :lol:

 

[Brute 23]

They sure do know what an empty sack looks like. :nod:

One time I was in a bind and put rocks in a bag. Even walked up to the plastic trough and dumped them to make some noise. When the cows came up they had a look of disgust on their face. I felt so bad about the deception I ran back to town and got cubes to make peace.

 

[greybeard]

I've needed to get mommas away from calves a several times, and had my wife walk down the outside of the fencw with a bucket of cubes. It works fine, but once, she just picked up an empty bucket and when they got there and found no cubes, that was the last time they ever went to her.
The suckers never forget...

 

[Dave]

I have mine hot wire trained well enough with poly wire. I just make a wide lane leading to the corral. I put some alfalfa in the back and lead them in with a bucket of grain. The wife brings up the rear on the quad keeping the stragglers caught up.

You have 3 kids on horseback!!! With a wide gate and enough wing you should be able to push several hundred into a corral. First pen should be big enough to give them plenty of room.

 

[Allenw]

The pen your going to trap them in needs to be big enough you can lead them all in, making a circle around the pen dropping your bait of choice and walk or drive out with room to spare behind the last on in the gate.

 

[Lazy M]

Some of our spookier cows seem to know when it is weaning time and refuse to come into the lot. I call in all that will come into the lot and lock up the 80-90% that come in there, and then set up a corral in the pasture with panel gates. For some reason the ones that won't come in the lot don't mind coming into a temp corral with some feed. I then sort the cows out of the corral and haul the calves up to the lot. Those corral panels are some of the best investments I've made. About 15-20 of the 12'panels will set up a corral for around 25-30 pairs

 

[Bigfoot]

I asked the feed mill to look in to getting me some cubes last week. They happened to forget,but will hopefully remember this week. I don't have high hopes of them getting them. They have been able to get me everything I've asked for though. Including jello in 100 pound sacks, so maybe they can make the cubes happen.

Having never fed cubes, I can't say for sure, but I don't picture them drawing them in better than my current feed.

 

[BrangusUSA]

Bigfoot, I am curious on the "jello in 100 pound sacks"?

 

[Bigfoot]

Bigfoot, I am curious on the "jello in 100 pound sacks"?

For horses feet/hair

 

[Brute 23]

I asked the feed mill to look in to getting me some cubes last week. They happened to forget,but will hopefully remember this week. I don't have high hopes of them getting them. They have been able to get me everything I've asked for though. Including jello in 100 pound sacks, so maybe they can make the cubes happen.

Having never fed cubes, I can't say for sure, but I don't picture them drawing them in better than my current feed.

Great thing about cubes is you dont need troughs... You can dunonthem out on the ground. Not all cubes are created equal but you would be surprised how much they like a quality cube.

 

[TCRanch]

I asked the feed mill to look in to getting me some cubes last week. They happened to forget,but will hopefully remember this week. I don't have high hopes of them getting them. They have been able to get me everything I've asked for though. Including jello in 100 pound sacks, so maybe they can make the cubes happen.

Having never fed cubes, I can't say for sure, but I don't picture them drawing them in better than my current feed.

Depends on where they get them. One of our local Coops makes them, the other orders from Purina, both are 20% protein. They actually prefer the Purina (looks, smells like more molasses) but we locked in at a better price at the one that makes them. Once they get hooked on the good stuff they'll settle, just to get their "fix"

 

[boondocks]

They sure do know what an empty sack looks like. :nod:

One time I was in a bind and put rocks in a bag. Even walked up to the plastic trough and dumped them to make some noise. When the cows came up they had a look of disgust on their face. I felt so bad about the deception I ran back to town and got cubes to make peace.

:lol: I've faked them out too, and felt guilty and also (and more to the point) worried it'll stop doing the trick even with the real treats.

More generally, what has worked(ish) for us is to plan out well in advance when they will be where, and when we will be catching them. Then we make sure they are hongry when we need them. Sometimes this means we will keep them on a summer pasture an extra day but throw them hay rather than move them to lush grazing. That way they come running when we yell. (Ideally. Sometimes we have to go round them up though. And once in a while, if they're in heat and we're bringing them in to AI, we just assume hijinks will ensue and build in extra time).