Training cattle

[S&S Farms]

Today when we were giving booster shots on our heifers. We decided to take a little extra time and run them through our tub and chute several time with the head gate wide open. The first time we all got behind the calves and just walked them into the system some would balk at going through the chute we just walked at them to push them on. We did this three times. Then we put a person standing at the head gate. We sent them through three more times by then they were moving through at a pretty constant clip.

We did all of this with body movement no sticks or paddles. The last two times my kids did all of the moving of the calves 11 and 7. I just stood inside the system and watched. Then when we actually gave the shots the calves just moved through and did not balk at all. We never even used the gate on the sweep. It was so nice and quiet It will be interesting to see how these heifers do as cows that stay in our herd. We will practice with them again several times this winter when we take weights. It is fun to see a 7 year old girl control 20 heifers at a time and get them to go where she wants them to go put a big smile on her face.

If you have then time I suggest you try it you will be amazed. We picked up the info on this ata cattle handling demo this summer. It is based on Bud WIlliams cattle handling using your eyes and body to move the cattle.


Jeff

 

[dun]

During the timeframe that we are backgorunding them getting them ready to be shipped the weaned heifers are in with the others. Once they're used to coming up for grain we make them go through the chute and alley to get their grain. When the heifers are retained it's hard to keep them from wanting to go through the chute everytime we bring them up. Sure makes it a lot easier when it comes AI time.

 

[Northern Rancher]

Every time you work cattle it can be a lesson either good or bad. Bud worked a couple hours from us for several years so quite a few of his disciples-it makes for alot of quiet days working cattle. One thing we do when were done working a group of cows we just don't open the gate and dump them-I narrow it up and make them leave the pen single file. Nothing I hate worse than a few hundred head of cattle running through a gate. That is a quite common mistake of rookie rotational grazers-there's quite a rush watching a big group of cattle tear through a gate heading to fresh grass-however esoecially when moving young pairs you'll strip the calves off the gate-it's better to teach them to move at a walk. There's a few cattle that would try even Bud's patience but they usually get a sort into the shipping pen.