Put 'er down

[Silver]

Were the bullets FMJ?

 

[slick4591]

That sucks
A cows brain is small compared to it's head and easy to miss if you don't know where.
My boys would have caught her and hauled her to town. Split the check with you.

Exactly! When I was growing up, I was the executioner! I lived all summer with a rifle in my hands. Anyone who had an animal to put down called my dad and dad sent me to do the dirty deed. I have shot everything from dogs to horses. When you shoot a horse, draw an X, from left ear to right eye and right ear to left eye. Aim right at the center of the X. I used a 22 rim fire and they went down like they were poleaxed.

Likely you were hitting the medulla. That shot will drop anything immediately. Miss the medulla and you could have some unintended results?

 

[ALACOWMAN]

Some years ago we had a heifer that raised twins, she was always calm and you could do anything with her or the calves. The day we weaned the calves she went nuts. Tore up equipment dam near put me in the hospital ran through or climbed over pipe corrals, went through fences, you get the idea. The pasture she was in was some distance from the house. Any time she heard a voice she would take off and run through/over anything in from of her. Finally got her (after a month) to the point that when we wen out and put out gran, by then she was in with a big old pet cow that we used to calm down calves and stockers we bought it. When we pulled up she wwould duck behind the barn and in a couple of minutes would peer around the corner of the bran. I dropped the butcher off and drove away, when she peaked round the corner he dropped her on the spot. The tame cow walked over to see why she was kicking then went over to the trough and started eating grain. Left the tame cow in the pen while the other cow was processed and she never should any signs of being concerned or nervous.

The tame cow's reaction was interesting. Hopefully ours will forgive-n-forget! I keep wondering if we did anything "wrong" with her but I really don't think so (not her in particular anyway). We do have to shore up our corrals that lead to the barn. I think once she realized she could bust through one, it was game over.

I doubt that it will permanently scar them...it didn't traumatize them in particular...but they have a good memory when it does...

 

[dun]

Our old butcher used a 22LR on eveything from sheep to bulls. He sold the business and the new guy couldn;t kill them with a 22lr so he went to a 22 Mag. He eventually ended up using s 30-06 on everything and it still took multiple shots. I told him he should cut a skull in half and look to see where his bulles were hitting, don;t know if he ever did since we changed butchers.

 

[Lucky_P]

They missed the brainstem. plain and simple.
I see 'em brought in from time to time 'shot between the eyes', but still alive and kicking... well, all they manage to do is give them a bloody nose, or, perhaps mess up their sense of smell, since, in some cases, the bullet does hit the brain... but barely...passing through the olfactory lobes of the cerebrum... not fatal.
With proper bullet placement and angulation, they drop like a rock.
https://vetmed.iastate.edu/sites/defaul ... anasia.pdf

 

[backhoeboogie]

A cow from walking dead

 

[Jogeephus]

The smell of cow blood gets my cattle upset. Especially bulls but in a couple days they forget about it.

 

[wbvs58]

I always angle the rifle to line up with the spine. At close range if angled down it can miss the vital areas. Open sights are best if looking down a scope at close range the point of impact can be a lot different to the aim point.

Ken

 

[Caustic Burno]

Our old butcher used a 22LR on eveything from sheep to bulls. He sold the business and the new guy couldn;t kill them with a 22lr so he went to a 22 Mag. He eventually ended up using s 30-06 on everything and it still took multiple shots. I told him he should cut a skull in half and look to see where his bulles were hitting, don;t know if he ever did since we changed butchers.

That 22 is plenty if properly applied
I have taken out 68 rooters this year with a 10-22. One shot using the imaginary X.

 

[jerry27150]

smell of blood excites them everytime. 22 is too small to even kill a human, have killed many cattle with one, have seen some that it would not go through the skull

 

[boondocks]

They missed the brainstem. plain and simple.
I see 'em brought in from time to time 'shot between the eyes', but still alive and kicking... well, all they manage to do is give them a bloody nose, or, perhaps mess up their sense of smell, since, in some cases, the bullet does hit the brain... but barely...passing through the olfactory lobes of the cerebrum... not fatal.
With proper bullet placement and angulation, they drop like a rock.
https://vetmed.iastate.edu/sites/defaul ... anasia.pdf

Thanks, Lucky P (and others). The linked diagram is helpful. The area shown is roughly where the shots that I got a good look at were going, but must've just missed by a hair each time. They stood right over her--perhaps angle was a bit high. Am a bit chagrined. (And, more self-centeredly, hoping the ordeal doesn't affect the meat).

 

[wbvs58]

They missed the brainstem. plain and simple.
I see 'em brought in from time to time 'shot between the eyes', but still alive and kicking... well, all they manage to do is give them a bloody nose, or, perhaps mess up their sense of smell, since, in some cases, the bullet does hit the brain... but barely...passing through the olfactory lobes of the cerebrum... not fatal.
With proper bullet placement and angulation, they drop like a rock.
https://vetmed.iastate.edu/sites/defaul ... anasia.pdf

Thanks, Lucky P (and others). The linked diagram is helpful. The area shown is roughly where the shots that I got a good look at were going, but must've just missed by a hair each time. They stood right over her--perhaps angle was a bit high. Am a bit chagrined. (And, more self-centeredly, hoping the ordeal doesn't affect the meat).

If they stood right over her, I am sure they got the angle wrong.

Ken

 

[Bright Raven]

They missed the brainstem. plain and simple.
I see 'em brought in from time to time 'shot between the eyes', but still alive and kicking... well, all they manage to do is give them a bloody nose, or, perhaps mess up their sense of smell, since, in some cases, the bullet does hit the brain... but barely...passing through the olfactory lobes of the cerebrum... not fatal.
With proper bullet placement and angulation, they drop like a rock.
https://vetmed.iastate.edu/sites/defaul ... anasia.pdf

Thanks, Lucky P (and others). The linked diagram is helpful. The area shown is roughly where the shots that I got a good look at were going, but must've just missed by a hair each time. They stood right over her--perhaps angle was a bit high. Am a bit chagrined. (And, more self-centeredly, hoping the ordeal doesn't affect the meat).

If they stood right over her, I am sure they got the angle wrong.

Ken

The alignment is paramount! I don't want to add to Boondock's distress but I have to agree. Firing down is not going to drive the bullet back into the cranial area. More likely went down through the nasal sinuses.

However, the collateral damage was enough to desensitize the cow. I doubt the cow suffered.

 

[mwj]

On an old cow or a bull I use a shotgun slug. The angle with a rifle is very critical and when things go wrong, the second shot is very hard to line up.

 

[pdfangus]

When I was in college at Va Tech taking Diseases of Domestic Animals course from Dr. Duke Watson....

we got to the chapter on Anaplasmosis...I recall Dr. Watson saying that unless we went to Mexico or South America or maybe the lower southwest states, that we would probably never see this but is was in the curriculum and so we would go over it anyway...

Fast forward about five years and I am the brand new cattle manager at an angus operation in Virginia. Drive into the calving pasture at sun up one morning and find three cows with their feet in the air and a few others that have aborted or had dead calves all overnight.

called the vet and posted them all and took samples and blood....turned out to be anaplasmosis...we had to treat 200 cows...

twenty years later my new neighbor cleared land next to me and put it in pasture and then bought some hereford cows from an order buyer. It was a put together lot and a few weeks after they arrived one of them treed him and his teenaged helper.

I went over and distracted the cow and rescued them...advised to call the vet....he had a couple die before the vet got there the next day...Anaplasmosis...He had to treat his whole herd and I treated my few cows just as a precaution...

I have seen anaplasmosis wipe out a dairy herd...they did not all die but they all darn near quit milking and that farm never recovered from the economic shock.

to this day a strangely wild cow and my first thought is Anaplasmosis...it is often the first symptom.

 

[Jeanne - Simme Valley]

pdf - thanks for that info. Not having it this far North, I am not familiar with symptoms. Always good to know, we know how "stuff" tends to modify & move.

 

[TCRanch]

pdf - thanks for that info. Not having it this far North, I am not familiar with symptoms. Always good to know, we know how "stuff" tends to modify & move.

I've had one case, in 2011. She was lagging from the herd, drooling, just not right, gums and vulva were almost white - not a healthy pink. Caught it early before additional symptoms (and aggression) and the vet treated with LA300 but I sold her anyway. But a friend of mine had one go berserk, hauled it to the vet and it died in the trailer before they could even unload it. Vet just said "anaplasmosis. no charge".

 

[ALACOWMAN]

http://www.grandin.com/humane/cap.bolt.tips.html

 

[Lucky_P]

I did a training session on captive bolt stunner use with some military vet techs yesterday. This discussion was quite timely, because it allowed me to discuss this problem with those folks and demonstrate how 'shooting 'em between the eyes' effectively missed the brain, and would only have given the animal a bloody nose.
We popped a dozen or so heads, with varying placement and alignments and then split the skulls on the bandsaw so that I could demonstrate the path of the bolt with a probe. None of these soldiers had any previous experience with cattle, stunning, or butchering, but I'm pretty sure they all now understand the importance of placement and angulation now.

 

[greybeard]

Interesting. I didn't realize the military had many veterinarians.
(were they from Area51 or whatever plausible deniability name they give such places nowadays?)