2023 4H calves and kids

[Mike Stafford]

Sorry...couldn't resist.
View attachment 125634

So, finally a chicken figured it out that it is better to drive to cross the road than try to run across it.

 

[Don Baer]

So Starlink must have a lot more satellites up. MY service used to come out of Denver but now the service is out of LA. I noticed that the popup adds are from the west coast...lol and my Shark Robo vacuum is on pacific time rather than Mountain...lol,

 

[Jonathan Shively]

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.

Just didn't want to bore people or gross them out.

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

I thought those of you that attended would see the growth in them!

Really interesting Jon. Please keep posting about your family.

Will do.

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

That is the fun of posting, a few years from now will get to see their changes.

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.

They have all grown to be workers and interested in animals.

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

Yea, I am kind of biased on the kids, the calves, yep, better calves than I could probably afford if I didn't have a "connection" with the owner.

 

[Jonathan Shively]

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.

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).

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.

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

Knock on wood, this is the only thing I have had to use the vet for since we sold our cow herd. Cost us $200.00 for him to come out and dehorn 4 calves (one was polled). I figure in the event of an emergency, this is cheap insurance that he know us, knows where our farm is and that we have facilities to restrain the calves in the event we need him. The sharpened pipe you explain is what I am calling a Barnes dehorner. For the older bulls on the dairy farms I worked on we called those huge things guillotine dehorners. On the getting kicked, yeah it happens, CJ's calf just kicked me literally in the butt the other day. Jon thought it was the funniest thing he ever saw!

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

To be quite honest Phill, these are larger than I prefer but time and commitments just created this situation. Generally prefer to do it when we first get them in March when like you say they are 2-3 months old. Maybe next year.

So, finally a chicken figured it out that it is better to drive to cross the road than try to run across it.

It is hard to describe, will take pictures and document when Jon and I get on that project. (hmmmm, let's see, that is only 798th on the list so far!)

 

[Ryan Mooney]

The sharpened pipe you explain is what I am calling a Barnes dehorner. For the older bulls on the dairy farms I worked on we called those huge things guillotine dehorners.

Just for reference this is basically what I was talking about for tube dehorners: https://westernranchsupply.com/product/tube-dehorner/



This is what I think of for a Barnes style: https://www.valleyvet.com/ct_detail.html?pgguid=30E07ADF-7B6A-11D5-A192-00B0D0204AE5



This is what I think of for guillotine: https://www.valleyvet.com/ct_detail.html?pgguid=30E07AE1-7B6A-11D5-A192-00B0D0204AE5


Never used one of those, by the time they got to that stage we usually just used a wire saw.

Having the vet out for four basically pet cows certainly makes sense . I can't even imagine what they'd have charged for how many we had to do though hah.

 

[Jonathan Shively]

Just for reference this is basically what I was talking about for tube dehorners: https://westernranchsupply.com/product/tube-dehorner/

View attachment 125676

This is what I think of for a Barnes style: https://www.valleyvet.com/ct_detail.html?pgguid=30E07ADF-7B6A-11D5-A192-00B0D0204AE5

View attachment 125677

This is what I think of for guillotine: https://www.valleyvet.com/ct_detail.html?pgguid=30E07AE1-7B6A-11D5-A192-00B0D0204AE5

View attachment 125678
Never used one of those, by the time they got to that stage we usually just used a wire saw.

Having the vet out for four basically pet cows certainly makes sense . I can't even imagine what they'd have charged for how many we had to do though hah.

Ryan, excellent examples! Never saw the tube type before. Yep, Barnes dehorner and the guillotine one is barbaric. We don't have a choice any more on large animal vets so utilizing this guy on this chore keeps us as a customer in the event we have an emergency.

 

[Ryan Mooney]

ever saw the tube type before.

They work really well, but you have to get them when the horn is barely a nub otherwise it doesn't really work at all. The cutter should just about perfectly circle the horn (it can of course be a smidge to big but then you're causing more unnecessary healing issues). At that size the horn button isn't really attached to the skull at all and it comes out really clean so you have less chance of a partially cut horn growing in later as well. It really depends on how you get the calves and when you do it all.

It does seem like there's been a bit of a slide in large animal vets unfortunately. We had a really good one in town for a while, she was a little slim gal that probably weighed 120lbs soaking wet but was really a truly excellent vet. Unfortunately she moved on to greener (more lucrative) pastures. She had kind of stopped doing some of the large animal work as well because she had worked in a large dairy area for a while and had torqued up her shoulder palpating 1000's of cows.

 

[Frank Fusco]

My guillotine type is a heavy weight that make Ryan's look like a toy. However I always hated dehorning as it obviously caused the animal great pain and stress. I never shied away from vet type jobs but, as said, I hated doing this.