Cattle Tricks 101

11/04/2025

“She doesn’t want to nurse and I had to tube her to get milk down her.”

The words were uttered casually as he lifted the tiny heifer calf into the back of my pickup. Had it been mentioned earlier I probably wouldn’t have been there at all. A calf who wont nurse is as good as dead. Not something I would normally be willing to spend money on then go through the heartbreak of losing. But here she was, already in the pickup and I had already driven clear over here. Might as well take her home.

That night and over the next day we struggled to get feed into her. Bottles were allowed to drip slowing into her mouth. A syringe worked rather well to sq**rt the milk in. We couldn’t keep this up. Feeding took forever and she wasn’t getting enough to keep her alive.

People recommended the Madigan squeeze. I had been seeing the technique for ages to help save dummy foals. Lately it has come into popularity for calves. But this calf was up and moving, she just lacked any suckle reflex. Surely it wouldn’t help her?

As a last resort I gave it a try.

With an old leadrope in hand I caught her. One loop around the neck and a shoulder to hold it in place, as instructed by my vet, then half hitches around the ribs. My rope was barely long enough even on this tiny calf. I pulled each circle as tight as I could get it by hand before moving on to the next loop. She started to struggle a little against it. I tucked the end of the rope in, it was just long enough to reach for the last wrap.

Now she was supposed to lay down and go comatose. I watched as I got the milk cows fed and other calves taken care of. She fought and struggled against the rope. Finally she stood up and was walking towards me. That obviously hadn’t worked, so I went to take the rope off.

As soon as she was free from the restraint of the rope she chased after the other bottle calf, nosed the fence like she was looking for a teat and dove into the side of the cow when I guided her that direction. Now instead of her not wanting to nurse the problem was too much nursing enthusiasm. She kept pushing too hard and losing the teat then sucking in the wrong place. What had happened to my calf?! This was a whole new animal. She was starving and determined to find her food. Gone was the calf who fought against every drop we tried to get down her. Instead we had a hungry enthusiastic calf who really really wanted to eat.

The Madigan squeeze gone wrong was apparently right after all. The calf it didn’t apply to and wasn’t going to work on had undergone a miracle change. Never again am I going to dismiss this technique. From now on it is going to be the first go to with any calf problems. Who knew.

09/04/2025

Have you kissed your cow today?

04/04/2025

Yes, it would be easier to do it myself Heaven knows it would be faster. The waiting is hard. Watching as expensive milk replacer gets sloshed around and spilled, or nearly spilled, has me gasping and holding my breath. I can’t stand to watch. Teeth clinched my husband and I both stand back as the children prepare the milk to feed their bottle calves.

After helping and instructing on how and how much milk to mix, the preparation and most of the feeding is their responsibility. We watch them go slowly and struggle. If we didn’t it would never be replaced by smoothness and skill. Strength will be built in the difficulties, not in taking care of it for them.

We don’t over face them, and are always there to help if really needed. They don’t usually want help. Pride in the ability to do the job and do it well is already setting in. That doesn’t mean they don’t need harried to get to get to work. They’re still children. Nothing wrong with that. They’ll grow up soon enough. I’ll enjoy their childishness while they’re children.

They aren’t strong enough to do everything themselves. They’re building strength though! It wont be long and those hard jobs will be easy for them.

Bottle calves are a perfect opportunity for training children!

02/04/2025

25/03/2025

I wanted to try the sandhills calving method. But we are farmers. No matter what we do it’s going to be converted to farmer style, at least a little.

The sandhills calving method is leaving the pairs behind and moving the cows still carrying a load to new pasture regularly during calving. This keeps calves in the same age group together which helps cut down on sickness that passes from older calves to younger ones. And it is supposed to be easier to move cows alone than it is to move pairs.

I thought I could do that in the corrals, instead of out in big pastures. But, it turned out that it just wasn’t going to work.

Instead I started pairing out. More horse work for me that way. So I don’t mind that pairs are harder to move. Keeping the calving lot cleaned out made it asier to keep track of which calves were new ones.

The pairs went to different pens instead of singles. One pen for a set amount of cows then on to fill a new pan.

The calves are still kept with other calves of the same age range. The main difference is moving pairs instead of leaving them behind, and it isn’t done in pasture. I like to think I’m keeping with the idea of Sandhills calving if not the exact rules.

The same but reverse. I like to call it reverse cowgirl.

20/03/2025

It was snowing. The snow falling softly, straight down with no wind to drive it.
I stood brushing the horses. We had all the time in the world. No rush to be anywhere or get work done. Right now the work was waiting. In the next pen over a heifer struggled to give birth. With the horses I waited, watching from a distance. Ready to offer help while trying to stay out of her way.
Spring is a time of birth. New life after a cold dark winter. Giving life is not easy though, only the strong survive, both the birthing and the spring. They are harsh and unforgiving. We need to have the will to make it through in order to enjoy the warmth of summer.

The calving season has been cruel, full of death. Young lives that will never get to lay in the green grass with summer sun shining on them. The casualties add up in my head, a tally no one wants to keep.

The new born with a broken leg. Snapped in half above the knee in front. With little chance of being able to heal, the calf's drive to live and strong will that had him up and determined to walk guaranteed he would never heel and his drive to live killed him. I sobbed over him, the cold of the barn floor burning into my hand as I held him down to finish his last bottle of milk while he fought to stand, the leg flopping sickeningly as he forced it to hold his weight. No cast or splint would hold, he would have to die to spare him more suffering. Better while he was sill so full of energy and enthusiasm than waiting until he was wore down from infection and pain.

But to take the life of something so young and so determined to live. Can there be anything worse?

The young heifer who was devotedly licking the hindquarters of her brand new calf. Only minutes on the ground he had already suffocated, she was licking the bag off his hind end while it covered his nose cutting off that first breath. I had arrived seconds too late to save him. She spent the day licking and calling to him softy.

The calf who died at a week old. Healthy one day and too weak to move the next. No medications we tried were able to help. His mom spent the next two days calling for him. She called until her voice was broken and hoarse.
Another cow had twins. To give them better feed and care we brought one in and gave it to the cow. Anything to make her stop calling. After all our attempts at adopting the calf she is still kicking it away as it tries to nurse. She wants her own calf back.

So here I stand. Waiting. Watching. Hoping to prevent another death. It’s hard to hold out until that moment when you know help is needed. To wait and let her try on her own. She was doing good though. Two feet were showing, pointing the right direction.

So here I stood among the horses. Waiting.

Then one last push. The calf was out. She had done it.

Jumping the fence I went to make sure everything was alright. The calf lay there, a puddle of after birth and bag. He was still wrapped securely in the bag that hadn’t broken during birth. His mom lay, exhausted, resting from the work she had done.

I grabbed the bag, sinking my hands into the wet slippery home he had lived in for the last nine months and yanked it back over his head. He lay still.
Had he already suffocated? Where his lungs too full of the liquids that had been keeping him alive? Would they kill him now? Usually the bag breaks and their lungs drain as they hang waiting to be fully born. I grabbed the slippery hind legs and hefted his hind end in the air. Hoping to help some fluid drain. He wiggled and je**ed. His mom, thoroughly disturbed now, stood to see what she had accomplished and what I was doing with it.

I let him down and stepped back She stepped back too. Horrified by this new occurrence. Looking on in curious horror as the other heifers came to see. They wandered off. She went to investigate. Wiping my hands on my jeans I made a mental note to remember to take them off before I went inside. Then I took my curry comb to my pet cow who came over to visit.

Again, we waited. My pet leaned into the grooming. The heifer licked her calf. The calf took a watery shuddering breath. This time we would have life.
And the snow kept falling.

18/03/2025

We see so many glamorous images of the "cowboy". A man tall on his horse out galloping across the plains, defending good and right, wiping the trail dust from his face as he greets his good woman who has been waiting for him in a clean tidy home with well behaved children.

I paused while busy trying to keep this calf alive and out of the mud, long enough to take this picture so I could share the reality. He was unlucky enough to be born just as a late May storm dropped over four inches of snow on us all. I'm not sure the vast amounts of mud show clearly enough for anyone to get the full picture.
People so seldom mention the reality of the "cowboy". The mud and sweat and tears. The fact that many of us are actually the women waiting at home, with a filthy house because we've been out trying our dangdest to keep the cattle alive, with children who are half wild animals themselves.

There may be a few who are all pretty, in cowboy hats, chaps, and jangling spurs. A cap stays on better though and can be worn with a warm hat to keep our ears from freezing, and I'm usually covered in too much mud for spurs to still jangle even if I had any interest in wearing them.

I love my cow horse and use him when I can, but a fourwheeler can carry me and two children and the dog and the husband when we are all working together to get the job done. It may not be as romantic but a fourwheeler is also easier to carry calves on. After I manage to heft them up onto the back getting covered in mud, p**p, and slime up to my shoulders. But at least I can get them up there.
No one talks about that smell that is unique to baby calves. A mixture of afterbirth, p**p, and mud. The way it embeds its self into your fingernails, refusing to wash out no matter how much soap you use or how hard you scrub. Only to waft up to your nose then every time you try to eat. The way it permeates your house, brought in on the clothes coated in it but needed again too soon to have time to wash, so instead they come in to dry out and add a unique perfume to the house. One that can't be found in any fancy candle.

The anguish of new lives lost despite a hard battle is glossed over. The people who supposedly love animals but can only respond to death and loss with comments about how they aren't native, how can they be expected to live, or that they were going to be slaughtered anyway, what difference does it make? In their apparent lack of understanding of the difference between a life well lived and a meaningful death, they degrade all life.

Still we are out here fighting to maintain our way of life. Fighting to keep them all alive. Fighting to keep putting one foot in front of another and make it through another day. Always fighting.

And those times when it works, when a calf pulls through and can go back to its mama. The times when the morning frost tips the hair of the cows and horses in white. When the meadow lark sings loud and clear from a fence post as you pass. All those little moments make it well worth it. Mud and all

13/03/2025

It is always best if cows can calve on their own. Unfortunately that is not always possible. How do we know when it is time to step in and help?

The first signs of calving can be easy to miss. A cow will become restless, laying down, then getting up, wandering around sniffing the ground. Often she will carry her tail high. When there is a problem it will usually be there at this stage. The subtleness of the signs can make it hard to know the cow needs help.

If we can see that a cow is in this stage of delivery and nothing has happened after six hours it is time to step in and investigate.

Once the water bag is out it is easier to see how the delivery is progressing. When the water bag has been out for awhile it will have a dry appearance. That is a good way to tell how long the bag has been out if the cow wasn’t recently checked. With the water bag out, regular progress should be made every half hour, an hour at most or when it is a heifer.
Don’t hesitate to help if things aren’t progressing at this speed. No point in making the calf wait.

There is a strong link between calves that require assistance at calving and the likelihood that they will require treatment or experience disease or death. Important to avoid the problems in the first place, choose big heifers, low birth weight bulls, don’t over feed

Hopefully you wont have to step in and help. But, when you do need to offer assistance, it is far better to help too early than too late.

11/03/2025

Her water bag was out. It was the middle of the night. The full moon shown so brightly on the covering of snow that no flashlight was needed this cold, cold night.

Afraid of losing the calf on the snow and ice I walked her up to the barn. So much for getting back to my nice warm bed. Easier to get one cow to the barn than a cow and calf if there’s trouble later. She’s a pet, so she went quietly.

Checking her carefully I watched for the rest of the night. She had the calf on her own at dawn. I went in for breakfast.

After the family was off to work and school I decided to get the calf tagged. On of our herd of cats came along. He follows behind me yowling every step of the way. I’m used to watching out for the dog. She’s gotten good at going away when yelled at. And the cows are chasing after her less. They seem to be used to her presence.

The cat usually follows at a greater distance.

I left the gate open behind me and walked in without fear of my pet cow. I would gently push her out the gate, then get the calf tagged and out the gate behind her. The quickly warming day and bright sunshine would be the best thing for a new baby.

The cat followed behind keeping up his endless litany.

The cows head went up. She had ‘that’ look to her eyes. I stepped closer to the fence, prepared to jump. She charged. At the cat a foot behind me. He dove through the fence. She retreated to guard her calf from the intruder. The cat resumed yowling.

I decided the calf could be tagged later. Sometime when the cats hasn’t decided to come along and keep me company.

07/03/2025

I don't think I'm brave enough. You go get him tagged. 🤣

05/03/2025

It was on this day in 2023 that Ghost and I made our Guinness record attempt!

It was cold and there were still piles of snow all over the place from the terrible blizzard we'd had a few months earlier. My husband had cleared out enough room for our little arena and that was where we gathered. Snow was predicted for the next couple of days and if we didn't get it done then it would be months before we could try again.

Ghost was enthusiastic about her treats even if she wasn't sure about all the people. She performed eleven tricks, I thought. Guinness only recognized ten of them. But we wouldn't know that or whether we had won our title until June!

28/02/2025

😆🐮

26/02/2025

A cow can’t ‘look’ pregnant.

Well, maybe not. I would always have a vet check if the answer is important to know.

But, there are ways to tell if a cow is bred, or not. Especially as we get farther along in the pregnancy.

Carrying a calf is hard work. It requires a lot from the cows body. A cow who is rolling fat, with lumpy fat deposits on either side of the tail and long her top line, is an open cow. Unless someone needs to majorly overhaul their feeding program. Even if they cow is terribly over fed that will keep her from being able to breed.

We can also tell by the shape of the body. A fertile cow will be wider in the flanks and narrower at the shoulder. As a cow looses fertility she will widen at the shoulders and loose depth in the flank. They will start to resemble a buffalo in shape as it gets more extreme. A rectangular build is neutral.

As a cow progresses through pregnancy the hair along her barrel will change it’s growth patterns. A line will form along the length of the belly where we can see a clear difference in growth direction. Sometimes this line will go straight, horizontally, across the middle to lower half of the belly. Other times it will start near the top of the shoulders and reach down across to the flanks. Not to be confused with the lines put in the hair as the cow licks and grooms herself. These will reappear in the exact same spots despite brushing or washing.

The belly itself will show, protruding low and heavy to the right side if we look at the cow from behind. It will be decidedly different than to gentle rounding on the left side.

So no, we may not be able to guarantee a cow is bred just by looking until she is springing, bagged up, and ready to calve. But we can get a basic idea by the last trimester when the results aren’t a matter of great importance, by looking at the hair and the shape of the belly. The body shape will tell the ones who aren’t and will not be bred with near perfect results.

Get the vet out or do a pregnancy test to know for sure, but it is fun to look and see if your guess matches up with the results.

19/02/2025

I could see that something was wrong as soon as I entered the field. A small black spot, the ground around it torn up with hoof prints.

Calving shouldn’t start for another month. There was no way this could be good.

As I got close I could see it laying there. A new born calf. Too tiny to live. So perfectly formed it was impossible to believe it couldn’t just be sleeping. The mom wasn’t there next to it. But as soon as I got close she came running. I wanted to admire the beautiful tiny creature and look for any sign of the life that must surely be there.

The mom wanted to protect her baby. She loved it, living or not.

Head lowered she met my eyes over the small dead baby. She would defend it to her last. I knew, logically, that it was gone. There was no hope, nothing I could do. Despite that illogical, desperate need to search for life I drove on. Leaving her heartbreak behind.

14/02/2025

Chivalry isn’t dead. It just looks a little different on the ranch.

It isn’t that farmers and ranchers aren’t romantic and sweet. They just express it in different ways. Flowers are a nice gift. A bale of hay or a new cow are better.

Going to a fancy restaurant has it’s place. Hopping in the old ranch pickup to check cows together, his hand in yours as he gives a gentle squeeze and whispers softly, “I’ll get the gate.” is the best date there could be.

Poetry is romantic, I guess. Sweet whispered words that send tingles down your spine and weaken the knees are different for different people. “No Honey, you drive the feed truck, I’ll break ice.” on a day with the wind howling and temps well below zero is the most beautiful poetry out there..

When it comes to ranch life romantic gestures take on a different form.

12/02/2025

😇🐮

07/02/2025

Of course my cow can spell!