From Point A to Point B

Reader Contribution by Sue Dick
Published on July 30, 2012
article image

So there’s been a lot of traffic to and from the loading corral at our farm. In my last post I mentioned how we’ve had to cull very severely due to drought and this past week saw the last of the intended cattle go, leaving us with just half our original herd. 

Now loading is something I dread. I’ve been many places (bigger operations where you can see they’ve put in lots of thought and money) where loading animals is a snap and a breeze. Now, we’ve put lots of thought into ours, but next to no money. It’s certainly more of a headache to load, but it’s doable, and all we use are 4 panels.

I guess I should throw in a caveat here and say, our system works because we use good animal handling principles, we remain calm and quiet, and ultimately, our cattle are very sweet and generally good tempered. As well, because they are so small, they pose little threat to us physically. Not that they couldn’t hurt us if they wanted to. They do weigh 500-600lbs, they do have horns, they could still kill us if they had a mind to but that’s just it, working with Dexter cattle is like working with sheep who respect that you’re bigger and stronger; the Dexters think the same thing. If we had 1 ton continental breeds, I would NEVER try to load the way we do.

We have 3 pens leading to the corral (where we load from). Our girls are very easy to lead with a pail. Being grassfed animals the tiny taste of grain they may get as their long black tongues curl into the pail makes it easier to lead them by the nose than if they had rings in them. We lead the herd through, blocking the ones we want to stay out (again, we just stand in front and shoulder them out of the way and they comply) and closing gates behind them. By the time we reach the corral, we’re down to the ones we needed to cut from the herd. We have our wee 2 horse BP trailer (we can fit 2 full grown Dexters and their young calves if needs be) already backed up and a small “box” of panels around the back, with one side of the “box” open. We lead the girls in there (this is the step that takes the longest because at this point their instincts rightly tell them something’s up), close them in the box, and then use the “door” panel of the box to swing in and push them into the trailer. Our youngest son is often standing in the man door of the trailer with another bucket, coaxing them to enter the cow-eating cave as we pressure them from behind. With very difficult animals the whole process from start to finish usually takes about an hour, often it’s much quicker.

Comments (0) Join others in the discussion!
    Online Store Logo
    Need Help? Call 1-800-234-3368