I don’t care how calm the bull seemed when the owner showed up, when it comes back to eat your yard, leave it alone. Just because he didn’t get angry at you this time, then don’t bet he won’t the next time.
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Only registered herds keep bulls, commercial ones make steers out of their calves and buy bulls from the registered herds.
They are the ones that decide if to weigh the horns and how or how long, I don’t really know.
We used to dehorn when we worked calves at a couple months old, so no horns to deal with in any of them.
Dehorning done quickly is over in a few seconds, but it is very painful for those seconds.
There are several ways to do that, none very good.
Castrating doesn’t seem to bother little calves hardly any.
They are right back to nursing and playing.
Dehorning does bother them for some days, hard to nurse with a sore head.
I was glad when we quit having horned cattle.
You may also tip the horns later if not dehorned when very young, so they don’t keep growing so long.
Once the horn buds become horns, dehorning would be very rare and done only by a vet under anesthetics.
Best is, as so many do today, use muley genes, cattle naturally without horns.
A cow can protect herself and calf just fine without them.
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Speaking from the dairy side and the other side of the northern border - de-horning protocols have changed a lot. Calves are given freezing and NSAIDS before being de-horned. They don’t suffer, and we don’t suffer an interruption in their growth which in the long run improves profit margins.
Older animals that somehow got missed undergo similar drug protocol, but gougers are used instead of a de-horning iron. We try to avoid that as it means longer healing and potential for infection.
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Thanks for the explanation Bluey. Now, why did that bull shriek at me?
Maybe he was expecting you to feed him and you were slow at it?
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So it’s a shriek of impatience, not anger…
Just saw this commercial and thought it was appropriate for this thread!
One winter, during a blizzard, my husband was plowing our very long driveway. He will also go into the main road and plow a couple of hundred feet on either side of our entrance. He came up the driveway and called me on my phone to tell me that we had two visitors who followed him up and into a paddock. He closed the gait behind two very large Chevrolet (lol Charolais, but to me big as trucks) cows. I called the police, threw them hay and water and waited for their owner.
It took them three days to claim them. Our horses were all stupid - even though the cows were a couple of hundred feet from where they were. I certainly couldn’t turn out on that side of the farm.
The owner sat on the back of our truck with a bucket and they followed her home. She came by several months later with steaks that I had to give away because I knew these cows lol.
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Interesting thread - country life!
Our neighbours few cattle broke through our front hedge. He was so mortified he gave us a frozen goose, except it was freezer burned and we did not eat it. The lawn repaired itself eventually.
I repaired the hedge by using the old cut and lay method and it came out very well, even if I do so so myself. We now have a beautiful hedge.
Next excitement was a bear came through our field. Never, in 40 years, have I seen that. I ran to get my camera as he climbed the fence to the south. He must have found a greenway to reach us, but I feared the conservation officers may have had to destroy him, although I had no way of following - they didn’t seem to have a record of the fellow. We are getting more and more built up and it was a strange site.
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There is a local farmer who raises buffalo. One day the whole herd got out. The farm is on Cowpath Rd and of course the local news stations had fun with that one.
Two years ago a big, red steer showed up in our retired lesson horse field and parked himself in the round bale. The horses were horrified and wouldn’t go anywhere near him. He had jumped into the field but as we were concerned that he might take the fence down when he decided to leave, I brought the retirees up to the main barn. They were practically crawling on top of me to stay as far away from the steer as they could. I contacted my local farmer friend who knows almost everyone and he made some calls but no one was missing a steer. Our township police knew of no one missing a steer. Through the power of Facebook the owner of the steer and I finally connected and they came to try to get the steer out of the field. Unfortunately, this was a grass fed steer who had no idea what grain or a bucket meant and had had very little handling. They were unsuccessful with trying to round him up and get him in a stock trailer. After pushing him around the field for a while, he jumped out and trotted off and they ended up having to shoot him :(. He had escaped when they were loading steer to take to the butcher and came over 3 miles, across busy main roads to get to our farm. He was on the lam for 4 days before showing up in our field.
Corriente cattle are fencing jumping SOBs and mamas are not to be messed with, and yes Charolais are mean. I like the look a good beef cow with big legs, straight backs, and legs at each corner, so the auction rejects my neighbors had who so famously continued to get onto my land were a blow to the senses: roach backed, front legs run back, just nasty looking.
^^This. I think they can run pretty fast for short distances, so if you are going to snap a lunge whip around them, have your running shoes on.
My dad’s cousin married a dairy farmer. They had Jerseys, and the females give great milk, and are very gentle. Unfortunately, this was before AI, and they had a bull. Whenever he was moved from one pen to another, it was with two men handling him, and the kids and anyone else were indoors. My cousin said her experience was the nice the cows, the meaner the bulls. She was thrilled when they could afford AI, and send the bull away (don’t know if he was resold for stud, or hamburger), because she was scared to death of him.
