This post happened just before we moved, but I wanted to record this mile-marker in our cowie adventures.
Warning!! This post contains graphic pictures depicting the process of dehorning and castrating! View at your own risk if you are squeamish!
Our neighbor kindly offered to help us dehorn both of our cows and we were grateful to take him up on it! We needed to give both of them some injections and deworm them and Brisket needed to be castrated and all of this is just completely new to us.
Warning!! This post contains graphic pictures depicting the process of dehorning and castrating! View at your own risk if you are squeamish!
Our neighbor kindly offered to help us dehorn both of our cows and we were grateful to take him up on it! We needed to give both of them some injections and deworm them and Brisket needed to be castrated and all of this is just completely new to us.
Sweetiebelle was first. Here is what her sweet little noggin looked like before. You can see the nubbins of her horns pushing her hair up.
She seemed to sense something was about to happen and seemed quite nervous as Emily led her into the barn.
We started with her injections first. We did injectable wormer, blackleg and bangs on her. She was already on edge but our neighbors are old hands at this and watching the father-and-son team work together was pure pleasure. You could tell they've done this many times and seeing how they would read each other's body language and jump right in without talking to work together was a sight to behold!
We've given Sweetiebelle injections before and had a good laugh at ourselves after watching them do it. When we gave her an injection we made it into a big production... holding on to her and wrestling her to try to get her to hold still, pushing it in slowly so that we didn't squirt any out and waste it incase she moved. It all seemed rather silly after seeing them just tie her up, hold her still, and squirt it all in quick as a flash. It always helps to see someone do something if you're a visual learner!
They tested the dehorner out on a post of the barn to make sure it was hot enough. Ouch! We were ready for action!
Steve jumped in to help hold her and get a better idea of what was going on. By now she really wasn't happy and had wide, rolling eyes. I was glad I didn't have to do the dirty work. I just stood on the sidelines watching.
The stink of burning hide billowed around the barn and I'm sure the burning sensation was quite unpleasant for her, but in a few seconds it was all over with.
For the next horn she tried laying down to get away, but that just put her in a better position to work with and everything was all done very quickly.
Here is the horn afterwards.
The tissues will die and the horn will fall off in a couple of weeks. Our farmer neighbor has been raising cattle his whole life and he's done dehorning a variety of ways so we deferred to his judgment and decided to have her horn buds burned off. She did struggle and the smokey cloud sure was odiferous, but other than that, she has been her usual self.
After the dehorning we gave her the pourable wormer. She didn't act any differently as Emily led her away and she ate her supper shortly afterwards and seemed to have put it all behind her. Happy heifer all good to go!
Next up was Brisket. He handled the dehorning just the same as Sweetiebelle did. The only difference was how quickly it went.
He pinned him against the post this time and he had nowhere to go so it went faster.
Here is what the bloodless castrator looked like.
One of them held his tail up, saying that if you do that the cow won't move, and sure enough, he didn't even twitch a muscle!
He gave him a quick snip...
And then hand-over-hand out came the testicles!
It was actually rather fascinating, in an odd sort of way, I suppose, how they castrated him. It made me think of a magician pulling a silk scarf out of his pocket, it just kept coming and coming until he reached the end and just pinched it between his thumbnail and finger and it was all over. He sprayed him with an antiseptic that turned his coat a lovely shade of lavender and voila!
Our bull calf had become a steer!
Here are the "scarves" ready to give the dogs as a treat.
Now, this seemed pretty disgusting to me, but I've heard several folks tell of their dogs going crazy for these little "Ozark oysters". So we offered them to our dogs. Lucy, my sweet little fou fou dog, was all eager anticipation until she caught a whiff of it in the air and then she wasn't so sure. Jordy tossed it to her telling her to "catch" but she let it fall to the ground, gave it a suspicious, tentative sniff and then turned up her nose. Jessie behaved about the same but ended up eating both her "treat" and Lucy's.
Brisket was also wormed and vaccinated for blackleg.
We are very thankful for the blessing of good neighbors!
Here is what Brisket looks like now, pardon his flies...
And here is Sweetiebelle, warts and all...
We have been unsuccessful in getting rid of the warts on poor Sweetiebelle and now that the cows go out to pasture together at our new house, Brisket has caught them from her. Steve has heard of an old timer's remedy that he is going to try and hopefully we can get rid of them. We hope to have her bred in November so we need to get her healthy as quickly as possible!
They have long forgotten their experience and are happy cows enjoying their large pasture to spend their leisurely days together in.
She seemed to sense something was about to happen and seemed quite nervous as Emily led her into the barn.
We started with her injections first. We did injectable wormer, blackleg and bangs on her. She was already on edge but our neighbors are old hands at this and watching the father-and-son team work together was pure pleasure. You could tell they've done this many times and seeing how they would read each other's body language and jump right in without talking to work together was a sight to behold!
We've given Sweetiebelle injections before and had a good laugh at ourselves after watching them do it. When we gave her an injection we made it into a big production... holding on to her and wrestling her to try to get her to hold still, pushing it in slowly so that we didn't squirt any out and waste it incase she moved. It all seemed rather silly after seeing them just tie her up, hold her still, and squirt it all in quick as a flash. It always helps to see someone do something if you're a visual learner!
They tested the dehorner out on a post of the barn to make sure it was hot enough. Ouch! We were ready for action!
Steve jumped in to help hold her and get a better idea of what was going on. By now she really wasn't happy and had wide, rolling eyes. I was glad I didn't have to do the dirty work. I just stood on the sidelines watching.
The stink of burning hide billowed around the barn and I'm sure the burning sensation was quite unpleasant for her, but in a few seconds it was all over with.
For the next horn she tried laying down to get away, but that just put her in a better position to work with and everything was all done very quickly.
Here is the horn afterwards.
The tissues will die and the horn will fall off in a couple of weeks. Our farmer neighbor has been raising cattle his whole life and he's done dehorning a variety of ways so we deferred to his judgment and decided to have her horn buds burned off. She did struggle and the smokey cloud sure was odiferous, but other than that, she has been her usual self.
After the dehorning we gave her the pourable wormer. She didn't act any differently as Emily led her away and she ate her supper shortly afterwards and seemed to have put it all behind her. Happy heifer all good to go!
Next up was Brisket. He handled the dehorning just the same as Sweetiebelle did. The only difference was how quickly it went.
He pinned him against the post this time and he had nowhere to go so it went faster.
Here is what the bloodless castrator looked like.
One of them held his tail up, saying that if you do that the cow won't move, and sure enough, he didn't even twitch a muscle!
He gave him a quick snip...
And then hand-over-hand out came the testicles!
It was actually rather fascinating, in an odd sort of way, I suppose, how they castrated him. It made me think of a magician pulling a silk scarf out of his pocket, it just kept coming and coming until he reached the end and just pinched it between his thumbnail and finger and it was all over. He sprayed him with an antiseptic that turned his coat a lovely shade of lavender and voila!
Our bull calf had become a steer!
Here are the "scarves" ready to give the dogs as a treat.
Now, this seemed pretty disgusting to me, but I've heard several folks tell of their dogs going crazy for these little "Ozark oysters". So we offered them to our dogs. Lucy, my sweet little fou fou dog, was all eager anticipation until she caught a whiff of it in the air and then she wasn't so sure. Jordy tossed it to her telling her to "catch" but she let it fall to the ground, gave it a suspicious, tentative sniff and then turned up her nose. Jessie behaved about the same but ended up eating both her "treat" and Lucy's.
Brisket was also wormed and vaccinated for blackleg.
Here is what Brisket looks like now, pardon his flies...
And here is Sweetiebelle, warts and all...
We have been unsuccessful in getting rid of the warts on poor Sweetiebelle and now that the cows go out to pasture together at our new house, Brisket has caught them from her. Steve has heard of an old timer's remedy that he is going to try and hopefully we can get rid of them. We hope to have her bred in November so we need to get her healthy as quickly as possible!
They have long forgotten their experience and are happy cows enjoying their large pasture to spend their leisurely days together in.
Here is the barn for them with the loafing shed and a paddock area outside the barn. They are enclosed in a quarter acre pasture overnight with access to this barn, though they rarely choose to go inside with all of the lovely weather we've been having.
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