Every couple of days Dan said he would help me in a couple days as he was really busy right now. My "perfect storm" meant I needed to release the cattle to the pasture by Monday afternoon at the latest. Once the cattle were released they would be very hard to get back into the corral. My stress was rising and by Saturday I was working on coming up with a "Plan B".
Dan wasn't available on Sunday and I went with Plan B. Donna has had experience banding calves and Wyatt provided extra muscle as at three weeks the calves are getting stronger.
I pulled some green grass and all the cattle followed me into the loading corral except for: Momma and Rose and three other calves.
Momma is sharp and realized something was up and would not go into the loading corral. She saw Donna and Wyatt outside the corral fence and between them and my actions she got worked up. Lots of pacing, tossing her head, and her typical strangled warning moos. I put Momma and Rose in the corral south of the barn so Donna, Wyatt and I could work in the corral without fear of Momma.
When it looked like the three calves would enter the loading corral I opened the gate. The three calves did not go in but the previously banded bull calf came out.
Argh!
I have a second gate to the loading ramp part of the loading corral and I got the bull calf and the three other calves in there. In the loading ramp area I had yet another gate and I got each animal in there one at a time so it would be safer to work on them.
First up: a little bull calf.
Wyatt pinned the calf against the fence. I reached under the calf and grabbed its balls in order to band them. I had both balls in my hand, but when I slipped them through the band one ball would disappear. I tried again: same thing. The calf was more docile than I expected. His mother was on the other side of the fence and making a racket and trying to get her head through the fence - to no avail.
Donna was just going to supervise as she is around 70 years old but she climbed into the loading corral to see if she could do better than me as I had to try to hold the calf while banding him. By now the calf was getting antsy. Donna also "lost" one ball when slipping them through the band. So Wyatt and I wrestled the calf to the ground. He pinned the calf to the ground and grabbed the front legs. I held the back legs and spread them. Three weeks old and the calves are getting strong. Donna was able to get both balls through the band. Success! You'd think having the calf stand and letting gravity help you keep the balls lower would work better, but nope.
For the other two bull calves Wyatt and I immediately wrestled them to the ground and grabbed their legs. I took the lead on the last bull calf - the smallest one - and was rewarded by a swift kick to my right shin before it ran off. Once we had him on the ground he tried to suck his balls up but Donna eventually got them banded.
Other items to do: tag the mother and her previous calf who had no ear tags, and re-tag four other cows with faded or identical tags.
Luckily I have my head gate. The cattle were pretty accommodating in trying to run through the head gate and easily tripped it trapping them. Most cattle remained calm but I had a few others who tried to get free and wiggled all around. I am happy I attached the head gate to two railroad ties as several large cows really rattled it in their struggles.
One hiccup in using the head gate is that the previously banded bull calf got its head and front shoulders through before the gate closed. The calf was stuck and the gate was stuck. I couldn't release it. I had to get a wrench and loosen the "backwards" stops. Then I could pry the gates back further until the calf slipped through. That is the first time something like this happened.
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| The bull calf looking at the bottle of Ivermectin while stuck. |
The ear tagging went well as I did not piece any veins in their ears. Only one cow had a couple drops of blood. I used a scissors to cut the old faded tags off the other ears. It is best to not re-tag the same ear as the old hole makes the ear a little weaker and the new tag may come out. I planned on re-tagging a couple of the heifers as the previous owner had the silly procedure of giving the calf the identical ear tag number as its mother. But in the excitement I forgot to re-tag Beulah's calf and one other heifer calf. It wasn't worth running them through the loading ramp to re-tag them.
The final thing to do was to spray (pour) Ivermectin on the cattle's backs (along their spine so it is hard for them to immediately lick it off) to fight any parasites they may have. While we didn't have to lock the cattle in the head gate to put the Ivermectin on their backs, for some cattle we set the head gate so it would trip. Otherwise the cattle could walk a short distance forward and backwards in the final part of the loading ramp to try to avoid the spray on their backs. For Beulah we didn't set the head gate as I was uncertain if she would even fit through the head gate. She can.
Donna and Wyatt said they had fun helping me with the cattle. After they left Momma calmed down. As she stood by the fence I poured Ivermectin on her back. When I opened the gate between the two corrals she fought with another cow. I closed the gate and went over to Rose who was sleeping in ther corner to the corral and poured a little Ivermectin on her.
After a bit Momma and all the cattle settled down.
All done. Now I can let them out into the pasture on Monday.
Here is a very short video of Momma fighting with another cow. Initially the other cow started the fight but by the time I started videoing Momma got the upper hand and started chasing the other cow around.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VN_IDEoa79Q&feature=youtu.be
The newly tagged cattle. (The blue tags).
I didn't tag the newborn calves as the tags I have are for bigger cattle.
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