Loading cattle (sort of)

[thecfarm]

Roxie,what was the name of the sale barn?

[Roxie]

It's the Vintage Sale Barn in Lancaster County, and a great place to take and unload the big guys. 

The bulls name is Pepe and he was led on the truck with a piece of bread.  His horn span is just shy of 6 feet. 

[Roxie]

Here is a close up of him inside the trailer.  He really was well behaved. 



 

[Faron]

And if he is anything like the longhorn cow and bull my friend Pete used to have, he can handle those horns like an expert swordsman.   Pete fed in a feedway with maybe 20" dividers.  We wanted to hold that bull in there to do something, and figured we could grab his horns as we walked by and hold him there.  He could turn his head and get out way too fast for us to get hold of them. :D  I always had a healthy respect for those longhorns.

[DDDfarmer]

We de-horn the calves at birth now with paste, get about 75 - 80 % of them.  Anything we miss gets treated with the clippers in the fall.  dont want horns on any of the cattle here. Too hard of feeders, machinery, other cattle and potentially us...

[sandhills]

Our neighbors who we trade a lot of help with raise some longhorns and although for the most part they're all very tame, I can't help but think "what's gonna happen when he swings his head around at a fly and I'm in the way?"  :D.  That guy's impressive Roxie, once they start getting close to that 6' span it can be a lot of fun watching them work around objects and narrow places.

[Al_Smith]

A foul tempered bull can hurt you weather he has horns or not .You definately will not out power one that's for certain .

[mooleycow]

uncle had a bull always finding a  way out or through the fence.  bulls name was whit.  uncle was a young man with a pitchfork.  they developed an understanding.  whit seen him coming, he would turn back for the barn.  i've learned to understand horses and cows also.  no problem, you just have to have an understanding.  what they want. what you want and what won't be tolerated. 

[sandhills]

Bad deal yesterday, very bad.  We have our weekly sales on Wednesday, yesterday morning my boss at the salebarn was loading cattle, this particular bunch comes with a lot of snort every year.  Anyway one steer kept getting back on him and I can't for the life of me figure how it happened exactly but he tried to pull a gate on him and didn't get it in time, his hand was between the end of the gate and ?? when the steer hit it full speed.  My wife is a nurse and was on the floor at the hospital when she heard the call for the life flight and the name of the patient, luckily (if there is such a thing) it was just his hand so she ran to the er.  She's been a surgical nurse, and worked er a lot and said she's never seen anything that mangled, she said I stood there and looked at it trying to figure out if he still had all his fingers and couldn't tell.  This happened at about 9 am and I talked to his wife last night, she said they were optomistic they could save the hand and at least 3 of the fingers, he was supposed to get out of surgery by 3 am this morning.  One of those accidents that never should have happened but I guess that's why they're called accidents.  Be careful out there folks.