Cattle Pen Education
September 21st, 2006 by Northern FarmerWe had our first frost this morning and the truck windows were all frosted up when I went out to do chores. I also noticed that the first time I needed the defrosters this season that the heater don’t work in that truck. That thing ah ma jig way in there that opens the flapper that lets the fan blow the heat must have fell apart again. Funny, it only happens in cold weather.
Today I was giving livestock handling lessons to a guest, Good Farmer John was over and was helping me move around some 1100 pound steers in the corrals. Now I know that there’s plenty of ways to make extra money on the farm from ag tourism to different kinda farming seminars where people pay you because they think that you know something. Well, being a self appointed beef cattle expert I figured I’d show off a little bit today on how well I handle cattle around here. Now these past couple of days I’ve been sorting and loading cattle in the trailer and moving them to a different area of the farm by myself. Key word here, myself. Now that makes me kinda an expert in my own eyes, doing all that with just me for help.
I always like to impress folks on how much I know, but will hold back somewhat because I don’t want to give them an overload between the ears. Now one of these steers today was already loaded up and trucked to a nearby town yesterday, I wanted to weigh it and today I wanted it loaded again for moving to a far better place. The only trouble was after being loaded yesterday and trucked around, this steer somehow got more education than me. My excuse is I went to a public school, so I hope people understand. The steer got homeschooled and from the looks of it, learned pretty quick that it wasn’t going to be penned up again and run down the chute into the trailer. Not if he could help it, he wasn’t.
A lesson to be learned here, never brag until the steers are in the trailer. The villain, or I suppose some might figure hero, good old number 3905, gave me a good run around and soon was getting more and more determined not to go where we wanted it to go. Most of the time I can dodge cattle and kicks and all that stuff, so I have no idea how I got into such a stupid position today. Right out in the open old 3905 decided to come right through me and instead of being able to jump to the side I somehow turned around and his head was against my butt, to put it bluntly. And we weren’t standing still. Now, JM figured I’d be going into orbit before his very eyes, but thanks to allot of luck and probably heavenly intervention it didn’t turn out that way. But I can say, that Kodak moment really got this old heart a beating.
Now, I was wondering if people would pay for experiences like this. I mean people go bungee jumping, sky diving and all those things. Why not pay for near death experiences on the farm, eh. There’s allot of different neat things that could be arranged to get the blood pumping. In fact I figure the super wealthy; those folks that are bored out of their skulls would have a heyday here with all the misadventures that happen. And just to think, us simple folks,we can have all this fun for free! I sure do pity some folks.
September 21st, 2006 at 8:25 pm
I don’t know Tom, I’ve offered to let visitors hold pigs while I castrate but I never get any takers!
September 21st, 2006 at 8:32 pm
Brent,
I find that hard to believe! I’da thought that one would be a hit. Maybe your not “selling” the experience quite right, eh.
September 21st, 2006 at 9:54 pm
Tom,
I’m glad you told the story… You are still THE Norther Farmer in my book! Great setup for cattle handling. I’m NEVER going to brag about ours… We just have a couple of peices of wire with a small electric jolt passing through. I’ll call you in December for help moving these critters again!
Glad ol’ number 39 is safe at your place!!
JM
September 21st, 2006 at 11:19 pm
Hi Tom,
Awesome story!
Yup, I remember similar exciting adventures growing up on the farm! —like a steer try—and the key word here is ‘try’ to jump right over the top of me while I’m standing no less. Maybe some NFL quarterback getting sacked might know what that felt like.
Can’t say that I had anything like your experience tho………
Always a pleasure……………….
September 21st, 2006 at 11:43 pm
I don’t think I am supposed to be laughing. You could have gotten seriously hurt, but man alive you tell a great story. I am glad you are okay. What a hoot. I am sure the kids will have to read this one too. I just read part of it to Brian, we both were chuckling.
September 22nd, 2006 at 5:42 am
Thanks JM,
But here a word: when I was your age our cattle handling facility was the same as what you have now. Then one day the first RR tie went in the ground and the first load of planks started to go up. And it’s still in the process of being built. I have 70 RR ties on hand and a huge pile of white oak plank in the old machine shed. It doesn’t happen overnight, it’s a lifetime thing. But once it starts, for every improvement, things just get better and better! I predict that someday you and your family will be leaning on a good set of corrals admiring your herds and Praising God!
About #39, I didn’t tell the whole story of me loading him. He ran down the chute into the trailer before the other two that were with him, and of course as the others were coming down the chute #39 had turned around and exited the trailer. Well, you know the position I take in this situation. Hanging on to the two top planks of the chute and both feet pressed into the rear end of the last steer. Not letting the buggers back up once they become educated. That was a hairy moment, but them two steers pushed #39 right back unto the trailer in reverse.
Steven,
Ouch!! I hate that when it happens, especially to me! Luckily, for those who don’t have much experience with all of this, it doesn’t happen all too often. One thing in our herd with all that angus blood, one has to watch out for them kicking, bigtime! They can snap your bones in a blink. Thanks!!!
Christina,
Thanks! It should be easier to blog for a bit because all my life experiences flashed before my eyes when a steers head was connecting to my butt. Now if I can only remember the rapid downloaded stuff!
September 22nd, 2006 at 5:46 am
Sorry to be laughing at your misfortune….. uhh…. uhhhh (Ok maybe not). I have done that so many times, thinking I’d show others how to do things and having it come back at me. It’s how I think I know the good Lord’s got a sense of humor.
Good Stuff! I wanna be there when you get 3906!!
Have a GREAT day,
Brad
September 22nd, 2006 at 5:53 am
Brad,
I’m still laughing about it all! But ain’t that the way it does go, just say that you know so much about something to someone and whammo, pie in the face type deal. When will I ever learn
If you want to be there for 3906 you’d better start excersising starting this morning. There’s always one critter that’ll break all the rules!
Have a good one!
September 22nd, 2006 at 9:07 am
Now, I was wondering if people would pay for experiences like this. I mean people go bungee jumping, sky diving and all those things. Why not pay for near death experiences on the farm, eh.
Tom,
The key word there is near. Until you figure out how to keep them that way, you might want to go slow on the agritourism idea.
September 22nd, 2006 at 9:53 am
Tom,
About an hour before you made this post, I was thinking of you and your comment in a post a few months ago that you wanted dairy goats because you were tired of trying to handle cows. I started thinking about you as I was milking a neighbor’s dairy cow. It is amazing how quickly those back feet can come flying at you. As I was kneeling next to the cow, a back foot came sailing by - fortunately it only slightly connected with my knee. Makes you realize that it wouldn’t take much for a cow to send you on to heaven.
Of course, my oldest son says that it is the dangerous aspects of farming that make it fun. (He made this comment after we had a tractor and attached hay wagon make an uncontrolled roll done our steep driveway.) This son, with Daniel Salatin and a couple of other guys, were willing to enter a wild cow milking contest at a rodeo. At this stage in my life I think that I can live without such adrenalin rushes.
Jim
September 22nd, 2006 at 10:14 am
Rick,
Your right on that. Well, there goes another big idea out the window. I guess them folks can just fly to Spain and run the bulls every year, might not be as many lawyers there either. But folks that want a cheap thrill can always dish out fifty bucks and enter a small town rodeo, ride the bulls or bucking broncs. More economical then Spain by a long shot, plus the added benefit of an ambulance a few yards away.
But in reality the farm can be a dangerous place, and not only a modern industrialized farm, but any farm. Injury is injury and death is death, don’t make much difference how you get it, the results are the same. We were working with cattle in about as good of conditions as a person can get, in fact you were a few feet from the spot, and it can turn on a person. I do thank the Lord, believe me, that I didn’t get nailed yesterday. That is reality and no theories or discusions will change reality. it could have gone the other way in a heart beat. It was nothing that I did to change the situation. And these situations pop up when you least expect them quite a few times a year.
Then in true country fashion a person laughs it off. Even has to spin a yarn about all the misadventures. Now, that might be a huge difference between modern society and the old country ways. We’re not looking for the government to come and make it safer for us. And I don’t think there’s as much immortality complex out on the land as in modern society. We see death all the time, not sheltered from it, seen it from a young age. I know I ain’t looking for ways to stay young, what for, go through all that work and greef to try and stay young and get nailed by a bull or steer or mad cow then all that was for nothing anyhow.
Rainy day here for once, big system, so the chores are kinda done and I’m just sitting here wet today, don’t pay to change clothes because I have to go out again in a bit. This is the first time in a long time I’ve been able to sit down and relax in front of the computer, thus a long answer.
Thanks!
September 22nd, 2006 at 10:29 am
Hey Jim,
It ain’t like raising chickens! The world is in sore need of young folks with the spunk and nerve to hold society together. And that’s where they come from, the farms! I know your son has got the right stuff and it sure was a pleasure to meet him and your daughter that time when you were here.
Years ago when I went to school there was even a student that was in bad shape mentally because of being kicked in the head by a milkcow when she was a bit younger. I mean, it was for life being in that mental state. A life changed by one swift kick!
And with the angus and angus crosses them kicks when they are running by during sorting can accually reach the upper parts of the body. They sure can do it, I don’t know how, but they do.
Key words here, “at this stage in my life”. I know, them rushes aren’t as important to get like they used to be. But I sure do respect them younger folks for doing that. That’s what fun is, not sitting in front of a video game or snorting coke. Plus I’d bet them guys are naturals when it comes to handling cattle. I’d almost be envious of them if I didn’t have to do that stuff for real sometimes
Well, I’d better go outside and get wet for a little bit again. These fall rains are pretty easy compared to spring rains, ain’t no calves getting born now! Thanks!
September 22nd, 2006 at 10:35 am
I too had to laugh. It seems like whenever we try here to show someone how much we know….. All I can say is God has a sense of humor.
September 22nd, 2006 at 10:45 am
Marci,
Thanks! I figure He is getting allot of laughs at some of the blunders I make! But I sure do thank Him for pulling that steer off my back, got my attention and I hope I can show how good He is through all this! God is Good!
God Bless!
September 22nd, 2006 at 11:23 am
Rainy here too. Durned rain….. who needs it
!!.
“We’re not looking for the government to come and make it safer for us.”
This got me thinking . I won’t be over to help with 3906 until you put tree bark three inches thick in the holding pen. You’ll know its me coming by my OSHA approved 4 inch thick rubber suit with an integral “stomp” plate, and by my ASTM approved helmet with respirator (everyone knows bovine gas is dangerous…….)
If thats not enough, you might recognize me when I mumble something about the The-aye-ter (theater, southern style)
September 22nd, 2006 at 11:35 am
Brad,
Now that got me laughing
Boy oh boy, this could start a whole list of stuff, eh! But I’m glad you have all your own government approved gear, because all you’ll get here as far as safety help is an ear check. I gotta make sure you hear the command to “run for it” when one of them bovines snaps and goes beserk. The kids here are trained to bail over the corral or if they can’t get there to climb (quick) up into the rafters. I know about that bovine gas being dangerous, but I’m more concerned with the split pea soup that can come out that same end
September 22nd, 2006 at 4:25 pm
Tom,
You are right about the world needing kids with spunk. I see way too many kids that shrink back when encountered with the least little obstacle or challenge. And I have to admit that even though I don’t need the adrenalin rush, there is an appeal to controlling (or thinking your are controlling) a large animal that could squash you in a heartbeat. Hmm … Maybe trying to milk a wild cow is not such a bad undertaking..
Jim
September 22nd, 2006 at 6:34 pm
Oh boy Jim,
Your getting dangerously close to setting me off on this subject! You know, since starting this blog I’ve had allot of folks asking me how it would be possible for them to farm. And I know quite a few will be able to, probably the best example being your son. It’s people like him that have an inner drive and it was easy to pick up on it. And he has that spunk! Where I see people guaranteed to fail is when they are so busy figuring out rules and theology that they don’t realize all it is, is a cover up for their own laziness. I see it on the net and I see it for real. Always trying to tell people that are really doing it that the only way is their way, even though they can’t do squat. And them loosers will never be able to do squat. Quote a Bible verse here and there and brag up how their denomination is the only way. LOOSERS in the first degree. One load of manure is worth more than all their wisdom.
When I hear about your son and Daniel Salatin and crew it gives a person a good feeling. I wish I was thirty years younger so I could hang around with that crew! Looking back and seeing over the years who made it and who didn’t can educate a person pretty fast to reality. And them young men are the kind that’ll make it.
Tell you what, next spring us old fogies can milk all the wild cows we want around here. But then again, maybe we should step down to a goat, eh
September 22nd, 2006 at 7:02 pm
I was raised on a dairy and I KNOW how dangerous that situation was. When we had to get a calf away from it’s mom or move a cow out of one pen to the next(we kept bulls in each pen) my dad gave us a Colt 45 loaded with wax bullets.(ever seen a 10 yr old packin a piece??) One shot between the eyes usually stopped them….usually.. I know nowa days people use a Hot Shot with the end painted white so dem bovine things can recognise where that shock is a commin from so next time you can (hypothetically) just wave it at them. Thankin the Good Lord for that angel that was hangin on to you!!!!!!
September 22nd, 2006 at 7:57 pm
Patti,
I love these comments because it makes me remember more stuff all the time. Pistol packing by the cowherd, yup, done that. And am alive to tell about it. Although I had never heard of wax bullits, we used the 22 automatic with birdshot. It turned them around during a charge in. After a while they even stayed their distance. But them critters are only a memory now
Thanks for the comments!
September 23rd, 2006 at 12:54 pm
Gee…I haven’t had those experiences yet and we are on a dairy. We just don’t keep bulls and our steers are so loving. Our steers stay long enough to provide us good meat and then they are gone. Our girls are pretty sedated too. Do you think this is the difference in beef versus dairy? Or should we prepare ourselves for this experience? So far we have had to load up the ladies for shows and no real incidents except…they stand there all stubborn. They won’t budge no matter how animated we get. They just keep standing there chewing there cud swishing their tails at us like we are an annoying fly.
Hope all is well your way.
September 23rd, 2006 at 7:23 pm
Ms Milkmaid I think it is the amount of cattle involved, whether dairy or beef, may have somthing to do with it. When you milk 300 head with 50 or so dry ,you dont’ get to interact with each cow alot. We had several cows that were very tame but the bulls we had were not hand raised so they were a bit teritorial. I know my dad didnt’ pack a hand gun when he went into the pens so I assume the cows were not unmanagable but being a small dairy there was no hired help sooo there was alot we kids had to do. I guess my dad figured it made sense to teach us all to use hand guns and rifles. Since I was the youngest and was limited in the amount of “real” work I could do I got to tote the 45. I slung thegun belt across my chest with the holster on my left side and drew across my chest. We practiced alot so I was a fair shot.
September 25th, 2006 at 5:39 am
morning Tom!
burr it’s colded here, any snow there let!
have a great week!
September 25th, 2006 at 5:47 am
Morning,
Down right cold here too (I think its in the 60’s…..). Had to shoot a copperhead yesterday, I’ll tell you, the Lord has a way of putting someone in his place in a hurry. Just when I’m feeling a little….. well…. superior, he’ll put one of those little buggers right under my feet to get me jumping and almost set off my automatic sprinkler system!!!!
One of these days, I’m getting a tractor mounted seeder rather than that old shoulder mounted model.
Have to fix the ol B drawbar today and finish disking in the seed.
Have a GREAT day!!
Brad
September 25th, 2006 at 7:10 pm
Christina,
Thanks!
About all I can say about the cattle being a bit more high strung is that the calves live a half wild life before they’re weaned in the fall and they don’t totally tame down all the way because of lack of human contact. We have calves now, probably two dozen or so that I’ve never laid hands on yet, and they’re a few months old. Those calves won’t even come home with their mothers, they get near the home gate and turn around full blast and head for the back woods. But then again, it sure does make life a bit more interesting “hunting” them. Thus the reason I don’t have to hunt much for wild game to satisfy those supposedly manly urges. I live the hunt
Patti,
Good comments, I can see you do know what your talking about on this subject. Now for any readers that think that we’re talking like raising cattle is like a last stand at Fort Apache, well, it ain’t all that bad, but a person does have to be alert and carefull. Thanks Patti!
Jan,
Morning about 13 hours late, but then again it’s morning somewhere on this big old ball! I hope your day was a great one! Oh, no snow yet and I hope it’s a couple of months before I have to mention that stuff.
Brad,
That’s what you’d call a high here on a good day this time of year. Boy oh boy, I’m sure glad we don’t have any snakes like that around here. To tell you the truth, I haven’t even seen one snake this year, kinda strange really. All we have are garter snakes. Oh, which reminds me, a few weeks ago when we were heading to the Little Bible Believing Church in the Hills, I seen something I ain’t NEVER seen before dead on the road, a possum, (sp?). I thought, what the heck is going on around here! This is the north country! Almost set off my automatic sprinkler system when I seen that bugger lying deader than a doornail on the gravel road 
Now I know that folks that live south of here see critters like that all the time but this was a first for me. What’s next, an armadillo!
I feel for you in that cold wave
Hope all is well down there!
September 26th, 2006 at 3:51 pm
Tom, you had me laughing out loud with the way you told this one! I’m sure glad you’re ok.
I especially love your term, “near death experiences on a farm”! Isn’t that the truth. I remember a few times seeing my father have a run in with an ornery critter. You’re right about it getting the ol’ blood pumping!
September 26th, 2006 at 7:10 pm
Becky,
I do like to throw in a post like that once in a while because they are so true. It ain’t la la land on a livestock farm unless all you raise is bunnies. And they’ll even bite you once in a while, egad, is nothing safe!
Blessings!
September 28th, 2006 at 12:23 pm
I’m catching up! I sure do miss it when I’m gone! I was laughing so hard here in my little cubby hole on the 42nd floor with no windows getting a great mental picture of the scene, together with Brad’s protection! What a hoot!
It’s cooling off here too! High of 85 and low of 60!
And I’m getting ready to seed some clover, vetch and rye….if I can entice my neighbor to do tractor work….
September 29th, 2006 at 7:54 pm
Christine,
This was a fun thread and informative to with all the input! And your a tad bit warmer than we are down there. But such is life, eh. Good luck on the planting!!
God bless!