All Things Livestock...

[texasjohn]

EasyEd... I couldn't agree with you more re post legged, pasterns, etc... I call this STRUCTURE..... it's not determined by bone size/density, but rather by ligaments and how they are put together and these defects are fatal flaws and should be removed from any breed, immediately.

 

[Spiveyman]

Well guys, she's on the trailer. She'll spend the day there tomorrow and then about 6:00 Monday morning we'll work on getting her in the gate at the slaughter house, but we sure had an interesting day today...

Wen't over first thing in the morning to get that cow loaded up, and then we planned to "break ground" on the corral system. Aparently my partner forgot to brief the cow on our plans. We tried to lead/entise/drive her into the barn. Used a little grain and a little pressure, but she would have none of that. So, plan B.

Since we don't have any horses broke good enough to rope from, my partner jumped in the Gator, and I grabbed a rope and stood in the bed. I was smart enough to go ahead and tie the rope off to the roll bar. I roped her calf, then we drug it to the barn and put it in a stall. Sure enough, it started bawling and Jumpy went right up to the gate, but she wouldn't go in. We waited and waited and waited. Finally we tried putting some pressure on her, but she wouldn't have it. I'm sure if we'd camped out, eventually she would have gone in, but we had stuff we needed to get done. So plan C.

There was no way we could do the same with this cow that we did with her calf. She'd have probably drug that Gator all over the place. So tied two ropes together (so we'd have some rope to work with if we needed it) and my partner roped that cow right around the horns. She took off and he looked like he was water skiing across the pasture. Somehow he managed to get the end of the rope around a tree to make her stop. I got the other John Deere, and we drug her sorry hide to the barn. Once we got there we tied her up to a post, then ran the rope through the trailer and used the tractor again to pull her right up on the trailer. She was none too happy about it, and there was no finess in this approach, but she's where we needed her to be - cowboys allways win! (So far.) She'll have a day to calm down before we transfer her to the slaughter house.

After that we measured out that area beside the barn for the corral system and are going to have to change the desing. Not as much room as I thought. I'm still working on a couple things, but will post something when I have it down.

 

[texasjohn]

Thanks for the detailed story I enjoyed every item of it... and can see, in my mind's eye, exactly how it all went down Just one problem... us TBN駻s expected you to get photos of the whole thing and post them Nothing to do except let her go and do it all again, this time with photos

Glad she's trailered now... yep, there was one time when I let a critter stand in a trailer overnight awaiting it's final trip.

I think you and your partner are earning your spurs and will soon be able to give lessons in "pasture skiing"... come to think of it, this could be quite the extra income producer you are looking for... I can see the ad and photos now.... "longhorn roping and skiing every Friday night.. bring the family and watch the fun" Could become a new PRCA event! Then, you could raise professional longhorns for the purpose, just like they do with bull riding.

I'll be interested to see if she turns out to be a "dark cutter." I give it a 50% chance since she is so jumpy all the time. Another reason to move her on.

 

[Spiveyman]

Ha! I actually thought about the pictures after I left the house and forgot my camera. There wouldn't have been anyone there to take them though. We were both very busy the whole time. Let me tell you, standing in the back of a gator, trying to swing a loop while also holding the extra coils so that they don't wind up around your leg, and holding on to the roll bar while your partner has the thing floored over some crazy terrain trying to keep up with a psycho cow - now that's the kind of fun that money can't buy and a simple picture wouldn't do justice. Once we got her on there I asked my buddy to at least get a picture of her on the trailer. We'll enjoy those memories for years.

I do like the pasture skiing idea... that still wasn't as good as the first time he roped a bull calf from the gator and forgot to dally off the rope, AND forgot to let go. Yanked him right over the roll bar like a Pete Rose dive. Kind of like pasture luge!

By the way, what do you mean by "dark cutter?"

 

[texasjohn]

You boys be careful how you dally the rope... you can find cowboys missing a finger that got caught between a hard place and critter on the other end of a rope You have described, well, why I put disposition as the first of the Six Essentials!

From this site Dark cutter

[SIZE=+3]Dark Cutter
[/SIZE]
[SIZE=+1] Dark-cutting beef is a condition in cattle that makes muscles of cattle appear very dark. This condition is caused by a decrease in the amount of glycogen in the muscle prior to slaughter. Glycogen is the product in the muscle that is converted to lactic acid, which decreases the pH of the muscle. This decrease in pH causes the muscle to be bright cherry-red.

If there is not enough glycogen to decrease the pH in the muscle, then the muscle will have a dark appearance to the lean surface. Consumers are not willing to buy dark beef and thus the value is decreased. Producers and feeders can help to decrease this loss to the beef industry by decreasing the amount of stress that they apply to cattle. In the 2000 audit 2.3% of the cattle produced were dark cutters. Dark Cutters cost the beef industry an estimated $5.81 per head produced in the United States in the year 2000.[/SIZE]

 

[Spiveyman]

Interesting. I'll let you know if there is any noticeable difference. We always keep retains from every animal "just in case." We already discussed sampling a steak and some grind before we deliver the meat. If it's not up to our standards we'll just split the meat between ourselves, then have a party and serve it to some of the friends we don't like that much! Ha! I'm hoping that between Saturday 2:00-ish and Monday morning she'll have time to calm down and get that out of her system. We'll see. We've had some stressed out animals before, but didn't notice any problems with the meat. Also we have our stuff packaged in very thick plastic on a roll stock machine, so our meat is always darker than the competition, especially when they use styrofoam and celephane. I think Longhorn has a bit darker shade than what I'm used to from the grocery anyways. It took a bit of education, but we seem to be doing very well with the customers. There were three other brands of beef in the grocery when we started selling there. Now there are only two, and both of them have significantly less sales/shelf space than we do. Once people try our stuff they are hooked and keep coming back for the taste.

 

[Spiveyman]

It's a done deal now. Also found out our slaughter house is a full service deal. They probably think we're nuts, but my partner asked if he could do the honors. The USDA guy said sure as long as he does it right. So they marked the spot and my buddy finally got the satisfaction he'd been wanting for a few weeks now.

Another interesting observation from Saturday. I think a sign of a cood cow is how they treat their calves. First of all this cow jumped the fence all the time, so she was not in a position to protect or nurish her calf. Strike 1.

When we started hazing the calf with the gator so that we could rope it, the momma cow (ole' Jumpy) didn't really stick with her calf. We were able to separate that calf fairly easily. The really interesting thing is that both Maggie and Lucie (our star cow and the alpha female of the herd respectively) came over to that calf, and started bawling towards Jumpy. Only when they did that did Jumpy come over to "assist" her calf, and then left it again. Strike 2.

After we'd roped the calf and put it in a stall in the barn, Jumpy would not even go in the barn to check on it. Maggie and Lucie probably would have torn the gate down to get in there to their calves. I don't know for sure, but they seem like better momma's. Strike 3. She's out!

Maggie and Lucie both have calves on them right now, about 1 month old. When we went back to rope Jumpy at one point both of Maggie and Lucie's calves got separated out with Jumpy and M&L were right on it doing what they had to do to protect their calves. Nothing ever aggressive towards us, but they didn't ever leave their calves.

 

[motepoc]

I don't have any cows, but did help my FIL when he was alive. And what you just decribed I have seen many times. And also, what you just described also sounds like a lot of Human traits that we have seen in the news lately. If we could ever find a chemical that caused the good or bad behavior and either put it in or take it out, we might have a better world.

 

[Spiveyman]

Well, the good thing about dealing with cows is what we just did - remove her from the gene pool. Granted she had a little bull calf that we'll keep a very close eye on, but that's the idea, mold your herd to have the traits you want. The solution's not that simple with folk. Maybe that's why I prefer dealing with cattle than people. (TBN'ers excepted)

 

[texasjohn]

Told you that Maggie was GOLD to you.... you are beginning to build your list of reasons... stars in her crown.. that cow will die and be burried on your place.. and you will shed a tear when it happens...

Glad your buddy was able to get satisfaction... amazing how quickly they drop, isn't it!

It is possible that you have TWO such wonderful cows.. assuming Lucie continues to behave properly in all ways. Certainly, you describe what I call superlative mothering behaviour to both of them. I think if you look back at my description of the 6 ESSENTIALS you will find mothering ability listed.. the story below illustrates what I mean regarding

Once I had a heifer calve overnight in 9 degree weather with 10 mph winds..COLD... and no shelter. I looked out and that little booger was dried off, standing and nursing just fine. I checked the forecast... going to stay below 20 all day and drop into single digits again that night. I decided to give the new pair a hand... but she was about 3 pastures and over 1/2 mile from the barn and shelter from the wind. Ever try to drive a single new mother cow and hours old calf? Don't bother. Do what I did.. get wife to drive pickup... gather calf in arms and get into back of pickup, tailgage down... make sure mother knows where calf is (in my case she was sniffing the calf constantly, so no problem) then drive slowly to the barn. The cow dang near crawled into the back of the pickup.. but followed all the way as if on a string...

That's what you want.. a heifer that has an uncomplicated calving, quickly dries it off, encourages it to stand, positions it to nurse, particuilarly under adverse conditions, stands while it nurses, then stays with and pays attention to it and protects it to her best ability.