2023 4H calves and kids

[Jonathan Shively]

I have failed to post pictures of the kids and their calves and plan on doing a better job this year. Not a lot of woodworking, but this project creates woodworking projects in fixing fence/gates, making feeders, etc. Those of you in attendance at our Family Gathering will see how much the kids have grown!
I don't carry my cell phone outside much and if I happen to have it, I am busy helping so don't get many opportunities to take pictures. Thus I rely on the kids, Lou, or Fina to take most of the pictures. Fair is near the end of July. So if this journey is of no interest, I'll not repeat it next year for you guys.

I don't know all of the calves names. When I handle them I just call them a nickname/odd ball name. When we get serious about teaching them to lead, we create a catch pen in the barn's alleyway and get them in this pen one at a time. Last weekend we moved them from their big pen to the stanchions three different times in one day. Because they get grain only in stanchions they look forward to the treat so after a couple of times, they will willingly walk into the catch pen because they know feed awaits them. This series of pictures is Monday, the third day of moving them into stanchions three times in a day. The calves are walking willingly so now we need to add length to the walk and also obstacles. Doorways, grass, dirt, shadows from trees all of these things cause them tension/jumping/balking. The reward, water. They are also wary because this is the first time in their life they have seen this sized water trough. So this is a series of pictures of 4 of the 5 going to the trough for the first time. This is calf #1.


This is calf #2. As I work with each grandkid I will learn what calf belongs to which kid. CJ being the oldest and strongest is the designated leader this year. His first year in this role, my first time of not doing it for them. He is doing well.


Calf #3. Those of you who know, Fina and Josh have 4 children. Tess and Eric have one child. She is not in full time 4H until next year. We have always bought an extra calf and let Audrey call it hers. It offers us an option if something happens to one. So one of these belongs to Audrey.


This is calf #4. Audrey's calf is a spare for Fina's kids this year as it is signed up for their fair. IF it stays tame and calm, Tess and Eric might let her show it next year at their fair which would be her first official year of 4H enrollment. Have to remember, next year, this set of calves can and should be 1200-1500 lbs each. Stand about 5'5" to almost 6' at the shoulder.

 

[Vaughn McMillan]

By all means keep posting this kind of stuff, Jon. I'm sure I'm not the only city slicker (and in my case, former country boy) who enjoys seeing life on the farm.

 

[Jim DeLaney]

Love seeing the farm life! Brings back many memories.
And you're right - the kids have really grown since the Family Gathering.

 

[Bob Gibson]

I have failed to post pictures of the kids and their calves and plan on doing a better job this year. Not a lot of woodworking, but this project creates woodworking projects in fixing fence/gates, making feeders, etc. Those of you in attendance at our Family Gathering will see how much the kids have grown!
I don't carry my cell phone outside much and if I happen to have it, I am busy helping so don't get many opportunities to take pictures. Thus I rely on the kids, Lou, or Fina to take most of the pictures. Fair is near the end of July. So if this journey is of no interest, I'll not repeat it next year for you guys.

View attachment 125626 I don't know all of the calves names. When I handle them I just call them a nickname/odd ball name. When we get serious about teaching them to lead, we create a catch pen in the barn's alleyway and get them in this pen one at a time. Last weekend we moved them from their big pen to the stanchions three different times in one day. Because they get grain only in stanchions they look forward to the treat so after a couple of times, they will willingly walk into the catch pen because they know feed awaits them. This series of pictures is Monday, the third day of moving them into stanchions three times in a day. The calves are walking willingly so now we need to add length to the walk and also obstacles. Doorways, grass, dirt, shadows from trees all of these things cause them tension/jumping/balking. The reward, water. They are also wary because this is the first time in their life they have seen this sized water trough. So this is a series of pictures of 4 of the 5 going to the trough for the first time. This is calf #1.


View attachment 125628 This is calf #2. As I work with each grandkid I will learn what calf belongs to which kid. CJ being the oldest and strongest is the designated leader this year. His first year in this role, my first time of not doing it for them. He is doing well.


View attachment 125629 Calf #3. Those of you who know, Fina and Josh have 4 children. Tess and Eric have one child. She is not in full time 4H until next year. We have always bought an extra calf and let Audrey call it hers. It offers us an option if something happens to one. So one of these belongs to Audrey.


View attachment 125627 This is calf #4. Audrey's calf is a spare for Fina's kids this year as it is signed up for their fair. IF it stays tame and calm, Tess and Eric might let her show it next year at their fair which would be her first official year of 4H enrollment. Have to remember, next year, this set of calves can and should be 1200-1500 lbs each. Stand about 5'5" to almost 6' at the shoulder.

Really interesting Jon. Please keep posting about your family.

 

[David Johnson]

Keep on posting. It is interesting to follow the grandkids progress.
David

 

[Mike Stafford]

Nothing I would rather see than kids being taught things that improve their lives and character. You can't go wrong working with kids.

Good on you and them. Keep up the good works.

 

[Brent Dowell]

I love seeing this kind of thing. Good looking Kids and Calves!

 

[Don Baer]

Oh yea, by al means keep posting this type of stuff. I have a Niece and her husband who are AG teacher in Central California (Visalia, Ca) and I enjoy seeing this type of stuff.

 

[Frank Fusco]

4-H, calves and kids. Brings back memories. We showed cattle for many years. Yours seem to have adapted to the halter very easily. Not always so with mine.

 

[Phill Clay]

More please.

Phill

 

[Paul Douglass]

My kids did the 4H thing. mostly sheep, but we had goats, pig. chickens. Bring back fond memories for sure.

 

[Ryan Mooney]

Question: are these all dairy cross or something else?

Brings back some memories.

I had the one milk cow trained to ride so I didn't have to walk all the way back from the top end of the pasture (a couple miles). Later I trained one of the milk cow cross heffers to ride and drive both, she was always a bit skinny and small but when we moved she sold as a pet for quite a decent sum when the gal we had take her to the auction was able to neck rein her around the ring like a reining horse haha. The younger milk cow I had trained to ride also sold real easy, the fellow who bought her drove up and dad sent me down to get her out of the pasture, I had her well trained by then so I just threw a lariat on her and rode her up to the corrals, the kicker was when I (still on top) walked her sideways up to the gate, leaned over and opened the gate and pivoted her around the gate such that I was able to keep my hand on it the whole way and closed it again. The fellow kind of stood there looking shocked for a minute as most folks horses can't do that.. I hopped off an handed him the lead and he said "well.... I guess we'll take her then". Done and sold.


Then there was the time I had several roosters trained to drive... which was a whole different set of problems...

I wasn't ever able to participate in something like 4H as we were to far out in the boonies.

 

[Vaughn McMillan]

Then there was the time I had several roosters trained to drive... which was a whole different set of problems...

Sorry...couldn't resist.

 

[Ryan Mooney]

Sorry...couldn't resist.

It was roughly as effective... If you've ever tried to have several roosters co-ordinate to haul in a load of kindling you'd know what I mean. If you haven't, yeah it goes about how you'd expect.

My goal was something more like this, and the failure was assuredly due to a lack of adequate rabbit teamsters.

 

[Jonathan Shively]

I saw a version of this with a rooster and a two wheeled chariot at our county fair the first year I was teaching.

WTF Is This? Man Got A Chicken Pulling Him Around Like A Horse And Carriage - fools boneheads and jackasses

WTF Is This? Man Got A Chicken Pulling Him Around Like A Horse And Carriage

foolsboneheadsandjackasses.com

Jon has really taken the chicken industry to heart. He lost a flock of 30 birds in their barn fire. He had a good fresh egg business going. Am going to help him in the next couple of years build a two wheeled chariot and harness to teach a rooster to pull him around. (it is an illusion)

 

[Jonathan Shively]

Okay, glad to see the interest. The calves are purebred Holsteins. As a kid there were over 50 dairies in our county. Now there is only ONE dairy left in our county and it is in my school district as well as owned and ran by one of my former students. They don't normally sell calves as he also has his own feedlot and feeds them out himself. We do not purchase the registration papers as they are beef only so it doesn't add any value to them or their carcass. The fifth calf (I know this is Ashleigh's calf and his name is Brownie) and I know this because he is a red Holstein. It is a recessive color trait. You will see him in this group of pictures.

What you will see here is a difficult situation the dairy industry hasn't dealt with yet. The beed industry bred the horns off of their cattle, naturally no horns is called "polled". Dairy cattle are mainly horned, so to keep the kids safe and keep the meat safe we dehorn them. Horned animals are more aggressive and cause all kinds of damage to their herd mates as well as the equipment around them. Our old vet retired 6 years ago. This vet moved in a year or so later, this is the second farm visit, he dehorned last years Jersey calves (that never made it to fair last year nor will they go as dairy beef this year and that is for another day). His method is to burn the horns/horn buds (depends on length to me) and then using the barnes dehorner you place it over the horn and pull the handles so they are in a straight line, thus it scoops out the horn and horn bed. Then back to the burner to cauterize the blood suppliers and wound and then spray with a wound coat. This all happened this past Monday. You will see the kids being hands on and Fina Jo running Lou's phone for camera (this set of pictures). Lou's asthma will not allow her near the area as the burning creates quite the smoke and smell! The young lady is his wife and she is a vet tech and their young baby daughter in her car seat sat in our wheelbarrow were present also. You will not see CJ in the main fray as he is moving the calves from the stanchions to the head gate and then back to their pens. The calves haven't been handled all week to let them heal.

Ashleigh will be a 7th grader next year. She ran cross country last fall and really loved it and on her second meet qualified for state. She participated in track this spring, says running in circles is boring, she prefers cross country.

The barnes dehorner resembles a pair of nunchucks stacked together. Then you pull the down so they form a straight line which scoops out the horn. Here she is just getting it fit and starting the cut.

If you look closely you can see her hands and the dehorner is almost a straight line. She is a tough and strong young lady!

 

[Jonathan Shively]

Jon is going to be in 4th grade next year. This is his first year of regular 4H. He is one tough dude. Trying to keep up with CJ and he is strong and built like a bull. If it isn't apparent, I am one proud Bop (grandpa) to all five of my grandchildren. Also really proud of my girls and their husbands. Fina lost a baby girl (Grace) that would be Audrey's age. So we have 5 living but 6 total grandchildren.

I think I have these somewhat out of order, but here Jon is burning the horn base. He is a Gilligan hat wearer as he is fair skinned and burns easily. My dad gave him his first Gilligan hat and he has worn them proudly ever since.


Barnes dehorner on and cut about 1/2 way through. This little dude is tough. So easy going.

ca
Here is where I am out of order. He has the horn off and is cauterizing the wound in this picture.

You can see Jon has almost made a complete cut. Doc behind him and Doc's wife between the two boys.

 

[Jonathan Shively]

If you watch Dr. Pol, our farm never has operated on the principle of catching livestock after the vet arrives. Since I have been shoeing horses since 1977, I value having animals ready for the vet if at all possible in the best situation available at that time. The day we bought the calves when we got them home before putting them in pens, CJ held them and I banded their testicles. It is a tough, tight rubber band that you put both testicles through and it cuts off the blood supply thus they dry up and fall off within about three weeks. We also give them a tetanus shots as we have horses on the property thus tetanus is on the premises/in the ground.


If I were a gambling man, I would bet this is Audrey's calf that CJ is watering as this is Tess (Audrey's mom) and Audrey with one of the 14-16 kittens born so far in her hands. Audrey will be in 3rd grade next year.
This group of photos are thanks to Fina Jo (holding the phone/camera) and she will be going into the 6th grade next year. Yes, she and Ash are Irish twins. Well that wraps up the events of Monday with the calves. Oh, interesting find, when we shaved heads/faces of the calves, CJ's calf did not have any horn buds. He is a naturally polled holstein which is a RARE occurrence. Stay tuned, less gruesome events forward in this project.

 

[Ryan Mooney]

When I was a kid we had to deal with a hundred (or two or three) calves in a similar fashion every year; at that amount there was no calling in the vet, it was all "in house" so to speak. I cut my teeth on heeling calves with a floppy old grass rope when I was maybe 11 or so (you had to be good enough with it to get both hind feet 9 out of 10 before you were considered approved as a roper hah). A calf caught by only one leg was a real handful to wrestle down. We'd split the momma's and calves apart and rope the calves one at a time, dragging them by the heels to a dividing pen where all the necessaries were setup. There were usually one or maybe two ropers, someone to hold the front leg & head down while the main action was going on, and a person running the dehorning/branding/emasculating. If we were lucky we'd have one more person helping the branding/horning and occasionally another roper once in a while. Branding was a full weekend operation that would start fairly early and end late evening every day.

Most of them were small enough we could use a smaller dehorner which was made from a short piece of sharpened pipe maybe 1"+- diameter with a wooden handle on the other end that was operated with a quick twist of the wrist to pop the horn bud out (modern ones are sold as a "tube dehorner", I'm 90% sure ours was made in a ranch shop). This works up to maybe 60 or 80 days old or so. With the young ones like that there was almost no blood so a little dab of clotting powder and that part was good to go. Older animals that somehow escaped the early dehorning we did have several Barnes style dehorners of different sizes (and for really big problem animals we'd use a wire saw, but you have to leave a bit of a stub for that and it'll keep growing). For cauterizing an old style copper soldering iron works really well... Bulls were all range bulls and generally left horned for protection from wild critters but we'd put horn weights on them so they'd grow curved down and were less likely to stab each other during the season (this required knowing how heavy of weights to put on and when to pull them so they didn't curve down to far and curve back into the animals face, I never really learned that part well).

For the lower bit's dad was a firm believer in mechanical separation and we'd splash them with some antibacterial (pinesol in water at the time) snip off a bit of skin, pull out the bits, and use an emasculator to do the removal ("whites improved" as I recall). We basically never had infections (but were also on clean pasture, the situation in a pen or stalls might well be different) and it was all over in a short moment. The bits were then of course roasted on the branding fire for lunch I never used the elastic band method, even for horses or cats or dogs...

I believe that the branding and ear marking was the last thing thing done if I recall the order correctly (It's been 30 some years) after which they were pushed out the other gate to rejoin their mama's.

There are some things I miss about ranch life, getting kicked in the kneecap by a calf when you're trying to get a hold of them or pull them off of milk cow isn't one though hah. Aches a bit just thinking about it. The stocks are surely a safer setup.

We mostly had herfords with a bit of angus and what not mixed in from range mixing. I do think Holsteins are under appreciated as a beef cattle, they are imho best when a bit older (maybe 24 months or more) but the meat has fantastic marbling and is really good quality. I ate a lot of milk cow cross beef as a kid cause there wasn't much commercial market for it comparatively so what came out of the milk cow was what ended up in our freezer.

It would be really fun to raise a couple of those steers all the way up as oxen though.

 

[Phill Clay]

Hi Johnathan,
Wow you bring back to some great memories of my farming life when I was I guess 12 maybe 13 year old one of my jobs was de-horning but I think our calves where about 3 months old not all that big we used to go by the size of the "buds" always around 1/2" high, I used to clip the hair from around and we had a tool that looked a little like a soldering iron with a round dip going into the end, we used to straddle the calf with their head between our legs holding onto the jaw you pressed it into your upper leg first left the right the hot iron was rolled around the bud and went in till the bud popped out and of course there was no blood, we used to work in pairs so if one lad could not do it the other took over.
It made you a strong lad and you needed to be able to work left or right handed, the second lads job was to hold it's back end from moving.
We got caught out a few times and taken for a run around the shed with a calf's head between you legs is not a pretty sight.
It was also the time to get the elastic bands out, poor little calf's they did not know which end to cry out for first.

It surprised me how big your's are when you de-horn.

Fantastic you are training the kids and the animals you don't see much of that nowadays good for you keep up the good work I for one am loving seeing all what you do.

Kind regards
Phill