hi my name is Sandy we live south of Xenia Ohio we have cows (mix of angus and limousine) plus we have a registered limousine angus bull
my son and his family live on the farm that connects to ours
every year when our cows calf we have a waiting list of buyers
i am curious do any of you use a pellet/dark gun for giving shots
thank you i look forward to learning from everyone
Sandy, sounds like you have a sound group of cattle you are working with.
I will tell you that you can use a pellet/dart gun to give shots. However, I caution you as to using them exclusively. There are many reasons why. I will first tell you why NOT to only use a pellet/dart gun to give your shots.
For starters, it is really expensive. Also, you need to retrieve the dart you shot or you will need to pay for another one. You had better be a good shot, because you need to aim for the neck. That is just for starters.
Moving on to the second part...the actual medications. You can see one of your cattle is not right, but do you know why? Are you just going to load an antibiotic into a tube, shoot the animal and drive away thinking you took care of the problem?
What you are missing when putting that animal in the chute is first of all, you can not take a temperature of a cow while driving a pickup. If you can, I want your autograph. The temperature tells you a lot about what is going on. For cattle, a normal temperature is between 101.5-103.0 degrees Fahrenheit. If it starts to inch above 103.0, you need to really look it over closer.
Now, that said, there are many various groups/classes of drugs. If you just shoot it with a dart, how do you know what you are really doctoring the animal for? I often see and hear folks that really do not know what they are doing say things like, "I gave it shots, but I don't know why it is not recovering." Then they say, "I gave it LA 200 or LA 300"...or some other 1980's drug.
You have to know what you are looking for in a sick animal, and get it into a chute, take the temp, look everything over, and diagnose what you are seeing. THEN, you doctor it with the appropriate drug and put it somewhere it can rest with clean water and good feed.
Think about yourself, if your Primary Care Provider just drove by your house after you called in telling them you are sick, didn't find out with what, then shot you with a dart with meds without asking questions or doing some hands on and drove away, how do you think that will turnout?
