Sorting Cattle

A few weeks ago, Clayton and I prepared to move our cattle from the winter pasture across the valley to a spring pasture. As a small, family-run cattle operation, we don’t have a big semi truck to haul all the cattle in one easy load. Instead, we haul 5 or 6 small loads in our trusty stock trailer pulled by the pick-up truck. It takes most of the day, driving back and forth from the winter pasture in the Stansbury area, to the spring pastures in Rush Valley.

On this particular morning, Clayton and I, and of course our 1 year old daughter, were the only cowhands available to move the cattle. Joshua came to help a few hours after we got started, as well as Joel later that afternoon. So how many cowhands does it take to round up 50-plus head of cattle? Just one. Clayton and his horse did a great job of rounding up the cattle and herding them into the corrals. It was touch and go for a moment at the end, when the cattle were crowding and jostling at the gates to get in the corral and a loose panel fell down. I thought for sure that the entire herd would turn around and bolt, but luckily, they didn’t.

So we got all the cows into the corrals. When I say “cows” here, we’re talking about 26 mature cows with their 26 calves, 6 two-year old heifers, 2 yearling steers, and 1 good-looking bull. The corrals are divided into two sections: the west side, which is where the cattle entered the corral, and the east side, which is connected to the separating chutes. The east and west side are connected by a small gate. Theoretically, you move the cattle into the east corral, then into a small adjoining corral, and from there, they are moved through the chutes and into the trailer.

Here’s some helpful information for you: it’s stressful for the cows & calves to be separated from each other for a long period of time. Mothers, you know how it is when you don’t know where your baby is or what’s happening to her. You worry. So do the cows. We generally try to make the traveling easier on the pairs by keeping the mamas in the same load as their babies. That way, when they get to the corrals in the new pasture, they don’t freak out because they can’t find their baby. And the babies stay calmer, because they’re with their mamas. Makes sense to me. We can comfortably fit about 6 or 7 pairs of cows & calves into the trailer at one time.

 In order to get the pairs together to go for their journey across the valley, first we have to get 6 or 7 pairs into the east corral. Now. You may be thinking to yourself, “How hard can this be? You move 6 or 7 cows into the east corral, and their babies are right by their side, and there you go. Finished.” Well, I’m sorry to say that it doesn’t always work like that. It would be much easier if each calf was glued to its mama’s side and never wandered off to hang out with its calf buddies. And for those calves that we have not yet tagged & identified, it would be much easier for us to identify which cow they belong to if they would stop trying to nurse from every cow in the corral until they find their real mama. My point is, it’s a lot harder than you think.  Cows, in general, like to do things their way. They don’t always cooperate like we’d like them to. It mostly goes back to the cows being a prey animal and humans being predators. Cows have a strong fight-or-flight instinct when they are in a seemingly dangerous situation. Most of our cows will flee rather than fight, but we do get an occasional cow here and there who wants to fight. So when you’re sorting cattle, you have to use just the right amount of pressure to get them to go where you want them to go.

Alrighty. Back to the story. Clayton manages to get 6 or 7 pairs into the small separating corral with my help from the outside. Since I had to watch our little girl, I stayed outside the corrals and identified pairs with the help of my trusty calf book. I’d call out tag numbers to Clayton, and he worked his magic by getting them together in the corral. In the meantime, our baby girl is wandering around, eating dirt and chewing on rocks. I decide that it’s healthy for her to do so, because I’m a good mom like that, and just keep an eye on her so that she doesn’t do anything gross, like eat cow manure. We get the first group of pairs loaded into the trailer. Then we must decide who is going to do what. We have a few options. Option 1: All three of us could go together in the truck to drop off the load. It’s helpful to have more than one person with you while you’re driving the cattle, because the extra person can get out to open & shut gates, direct you when you’re backing up the trailer, and share heartfelt conversations. However, since we were short-handed, I knew it would be more useful if one of us stayed back to sort another load of pairs to be ready to go when the truck got back. Which leads us to Option 2: One of us drive the truck, the other stays back to sort out another group. Now, I’ve driven the truck & trailer several times, but I’m not totally comfortable doing it by myself with a full load of cattle. What if something happened? What if a tire blew, or the truck breaks down, or any number of horrible possibilities that I am not fully equipped to deal with? So I “volunteered” to stay behind and sort out another group of pairs. Clayton and the baby take off in the truck, and I am left behind to get the job done.

Picture me, 5 foot, 4 & ½ inches, standing in a corral full of cattle. They’re big. They can kick. They can charge. They can roll their eyes at you in a threatening manner. I admit, I’m a tiny bit intimidated. But intimidation be hanged, I need to get a group of cattle sorted before Clayton gets back with truck and sees me as a no-good worthless cowhand! My goal is to get all of the mama cows with their babies into the east corral, keeping the heifers, steers, and bull in the west corral. I figured Clayton could help me sort the mamas and babies into pairs when he gets back. So I start out, fearless in my determination to get the job done. I have with me a “sorting stick”, which can be a length of PVC pipe, or a long but sturdy stick, or a stock whip, or whatever you can find. The sorting stick is used as an extension of your arm. When I want a cow to move away from me, I can reach out with the stick and tap it on its rump, and that way, my body is not close enough for the cow to kick me if she chose to do so. Or, in the case when mean Bull #49 was chasing poor Joseph in the corral at Grandma’s house, the stick can be used to whack a charging animal on the nose to encourage them to turn away from you.  My sorting stick that I used on this day just so happened to be an old wooden curtain rod that we had used the previous weekend at my daughter’s birthday party to break open the piñata. It happened to be in the back of the truck when we arrived at the cattle pasture this morning, so we grabbed it to use as a sorting stick. Hey, it works.

So there I am, little old me, with my curtain rod in hand, trying to sort the cattle, all by myself. It would have been a lot easier if there were three of me. Or even two of me. I’d make one of me be in charge of guarding the gate, and would make sure the cows that were already in the east corral did not escape back into the west corral. That’s one of the hard parts when you’re by yourself, is that you have to leave the connecting gate open so that the cows you want to move can go into the other side, but there’s nothing there to stop the cows from coming back out. I’d manage to get a cow or two into the east side, but they’d always slip back into the west side while my back was turned. So I’d chase them back into the east side, and give them a stern lecture, punctuated with much waving of my curtain rod, threatening them to stay where they were or else. Then it’s back over to the west side. Most of the calves were chillin’ in one of the far corners, so I focused mainly on moving the grown cows. But of course, the cows that I wanted to move over were hiding behind the heifers and the bull. I try ineffectively to move the heifers and bull out of the way, but let’s face it, I’m a teeny-tiny bit scared of the bull and I’m sure he knows it. Same thing goes for this one cow, cow #14. I think she’s mostly bluff, but she’s always pawing at the ground, trying to intimidate me. I don’t think she or the bull would actually charge me, but I’m pretty sure the bull wouldn’t hesitate to move me out of his way if I were in it. I’m keeping one eye on the bull & #14, and one eye on the gate, and one eye . . . oh wait, I only have two eyes. I switch tactics and try to lecture the cows, and tell them in plain English just exactly what I want them to do. Our conversation went something like this:

Me: “Ok, Patch-Eye, you take your little calf with you and go join your friends in the other corral. No, no, no, don’t run into that corner! Turn around and go that way! No? Ok, how about you, #23?  Will you please go into the other corral? Don’t you turn your back on me! 23! Stop ignoring me and get over there! You, heifers, get back away from that gate—don’t make me come after you with this curtain rod!”

Cows: "Moo."

These conversations were largely in vain. I can’t figure out why.

Well, to make a long story just a bit shorter, by the time Clayton returned, I had managed to get 3 pairs into the east corral, along with 2 mama cows without their calves, and 2 heifers that weren’t supposed to be over there, but that’s just too bad. I’m sure all those people driving by on the highway must have gotten a good laugh, watching some girl waving a curtain rod ineffectively at a bunch of cows. And of course, Clayton went in the corrals and in no time, all by himself, had sorted out a nice group of cow & calf pairs. What can I say? He’s amazing.

 Next time, I’ll drive the truck.

What a stud!

Male vs. Female

So far this year, calving season has been very uneventful. Which is actually kind of nice for a change; it’s been really really nice to have everything go so smoothly. We don’t have any first-time mamas this year, so all of our cows are experienced giving birth & taking care of their babies. And we haven’t had any runaway calves or anything crazy like that happening. We have 25 cute little calves with one more due within the next week or so.  Like I said, it’s been nice to have everything go smoothly, but it’s left me with not as many stories to tell as we would normally have.  But just when I was thinking that nothing interesting or exciting was happening, we had a day like today. Let me tell you all about it . . .

We had been keeping our bull in the same pasture as our horses during the last several months (We keep him away from the cows for a few months when they are giving birth as a way to control when the next year’s calves will be born). One day, about a month or two ago, a gentleman stopped us as we were feeding the horses & the bull. We’ll call this gentleman “Gus”. Gus has two cows of his own, and was interested in leasing our bull for a month to breed his cows. He’d be willing to pay, of course, and would feed the bull and take care of him at his place while the bull serviced his cows. We couldn’t see anything wrong with this; heck, we weren’t using the bull’s services at this time, so why not lend him out to a neighbor in need & get ourselves a bit of cash?

So we did. We hauled the bull to Gus’ place, which was only a mile or so down the road. Gus and his wife are probably in their 50s, maybe 60s, and they’re some real nice folks. He says they always buy a steer or two each year to butcher & share with their kids. Last year they bought two heifers and figured on breeding them and raising a few calves. It was getting to be dark by the time we dropped him off, so we didn’t get a real good look at Gus’ cows or his place, but it looked like a pretty nice facility. We wished the bull luck, and then we were on our way. Didn’t see him for a month.

Enter today. Today was the day that we had scheduled with Gus to pick up the bull. Clayton and I drove down to Gus’ place, back the trailer up, set up some corral panels to make a chute of sorts that we could use to herd the bull into the trailer. The bull and Gus’ two cows were in a smallish pasture, maybe half an acre or so. Gus has recently had some surgery, and so he is unable to help us out, but that’s no problem. We’ve chased cows before. Gus’ cows were pretty flighty, and wouldn’t let us get close to them without sprinting away. Our bull was hanging out with these new friends pretty closely, so we chased all three of them around the pasture a time or two before we decided to change our strategy. See, our bull is pretty big. He can’t run as fast as those other two bovines, because he’s so bulky and muscular. We figure that if we can separate the bull from the other two, then he’ll calm down and we’ll have more success in herding him into the chute. Gus has a small corral by his barn, and we decide to pen the two crazy cattle in that corral, and then separate the bull from them. And so we do. We get all three animals into the corral, and then let the bull out. In the meantime, one of Gus’ crazy cows has jumped over the back fence and is now in the field next door. We let that animal alone, hoping it’ll calm down, and focus on getting our bull safely into our trailer. Which we eventually do, because he’s not terribly wild, and we shut him inside the trailer, safe and sound.

Since we had contributed to the problem of Gus’ cows being crazy & jumping the fence, we opted to help him out and get his animal back into his own field. Some people maybe would have left the old fella to get his cow by himself, after all, it’s not our problem, but that never would have occurred to us. We found a gate that connects the neighbor’s field to Gus’ field, which we opened. Clayton took off on foot, Gus drove off on his four-wheeler, and I stayed by the gate to prevent Gus’ second animal from escaping. Let me just say here that Gus and his wife were both very nice people. They just didn’t have a whole lot of experience with cattle, perhaps. After watching Gus ineffectively trying to herd the cow with the four-wheeler, Clayton diplomatically borrowed the four-wheeler and began herding the cow himself. This cow was pretty wild. It was running all over the neighbor’s field, getting all of the horses in the neighborhood all stirred up. The four-wheeler has an open box built onto the front, which was holding some random tools, gloves, you know, the kind of stuff that you find around a barn or in a garage. Whilst on his wild-cow chase, Clayton does a great job, but in the process, tools, sprinkler heads, gloves and who knows what else, bounces out of the box and is now spread all over the neighbor's field. But the cow eventually gets pretty worn out, Clayton nearly runs it over a few times, and sooner or later, it finds its way back home. Safe and sound.

Now. Ahem. It was pretty clear to both Clayton and I upon our arrival at Gus’ house, but was made certain while we were in close quarters separating the bull from Gus’ two animals, that Gus was unfortunately very much mistaken on the gender of his animals. The two “cows” to which our bull had been employed to breed with, were in fact, not cows, but were also bulls. After a quick whispered discussion, Clayton and I knew that we couldn’t just leave these two nice people expecting to get cute calves in the spring. After some careful questioning of just who had sold these two “cows” to Gus, Clayton gently informed him that they were not cows, but were bulls. There would be no baby cows come spring. We hated to be the bearers of bad news, but figured that we ought to be honest with the poor fella. Gus was surprised and embarrassed, and we pointed out the finer details of the bulls’ anatomy to him. Make no mistake; they were both fully-equipped male bovines. To give Gus some credit, the bulls were fairly young (about 1 ½ years) and their man-parts were not nearly as pronounced as our older bull’s. I can see where someone who didn’t know what they were looking for might not see what they were looking for. And the crazy bull that jumped the fence had never let Gus anywhere near him in all the time that Gus owned him, so it’s not like he was ever able to do a close physical exam. Gus said neither he nor his wife had much experience with cattle, and that the person who sold the pair to him said that they were female. Perhaps the seller of the cattle mistakenly gave him the two bulls, or maybe there were some strange dealings going on; I don’t know. But Gus was glad that we were honest with him, and so grateful to us for not laughing at him and for spending an hour & a half on our Saturday morning for what turned out to be a futile endeavor. We felt pretty bad for Gus, and gave him some good tips and advice before we left.

                                            This is a bull . . .

                                           And this is a cow. Can YOU tell the difference? If not, come on over and we'll give you an anatomy lesson.

Clayton's awe-inspiring tag

As I’ve mentioned before, I’ve lost some of my bravery when it comes to tagging calves. I posted before about brave things that I’ve done in the past, so that you would think that I am cool and brave, but really, I’m not. I'm having a really hard time admitting it, but it's true. Deep down inside, I am a wimp. Especially lately. Maybe it’s because I’m out of practice, not having tagged any calves last year since I was pregnant, but I haven’t tagged a single calf by myself this year, and I don’t particularly want to! Ok, ok, I do want to tag a calf by myself, but I haven’t found the courage yet to do so (PS, if anybody calls me a wimp to my face, I will punch you in your face).

Before I realized that I was a wimp, I attempted to tag a new calf a few weeks ago. No big deal, I’ve done it half a dozen times or so in the past, right? The mama cow was standing nearby, eating her placenta – Ok, here’s a disgusting side note. Cows eat their placenta. The theory is that the mother cow eats the placenta to remove evidence of birth that might attract predators, which might harm her baby. There’s also the theory that it is just so darn nutritive and healthy, so why not eat it? Apparently most mammal animals do it. I’ve heard of humans doing it too, and that just makes me want to vomit, but whatever floats your boat. If you want to eat placenta, go for it, but count me out. Anyway, for whatever the reason, the cows eat their placenta, and I think it’s gross.

Back to the story. Mama cow is slurping up her placenta like a bowl of spaghetti, but still keeping a watchful eye on her new baby, who is lying in the grass close by. I sneak up, loaded tagging gun in hand, slip my hand onto the baby’s ear, position the tag, and just as I start squeezing the gun closed, the calf jumps to its feet and leaps away. In my cowardice, I am imagining the angry mama cow coming after me, so instead of concentrating on firmly squeezing the gun and getting the tag on, I sort of lose my grip and jump away from the calf to protect myself. The sharp tip of the tagging gun grazed the flesh off of the calf’s ear, and the tag, of course, is still on the gun. I didn’t get the job done. The mama cow, now aware that I was up to no good, keeps her calf close to her. And of course, the calf wants nothing to do with me because I just scraped a goodly portion of flesh off his ear. Humiliated at my failure, I slowly walk back to Clayton and tell that I am a no-good cowhand and ought to be fired. Oh, the shame.

Good old Clayton takes the tagging gun from me and goes about to complete the task. I try to tell him that it’s no use, the cow and calf are both too wary now, but he won’t take no for an answer. I watch with some skepticism as Clayton slowly approaches the pair. He crouches down, and to my disbelieving eyes, the calf gradually walks right up to Clayton, cautiously stretches out his little neck and sniffs him. Clayton gently reaches up, caresses the little calf on the head, softly takes his ear and slips the tag on. The calf runs back to his mama, and they live happily ever after.

What the?? My jaw is on the floor. How did he DO that? It’s like the calf was offering himself to Clayton to be tagged. You’d think that the baby would be wary and afraid of humans; after all, I had just ripped a hole in his ear not three minutes earlier. And the mama cow, well, it was like Clayton wasn’t even there. If I hadn’t been there to see it for myself, I never would have believed it. It’s one of the many times that I have kicked myself for not having a camera in hand. It would have been a wonderful photograph; Clayton reaching for the little calf, and the calf stretching up his neck to meet him.

I am now in awe of this man that I married. He must be some kind of cow hypnotist or something. And throughout this whole calving season, I’ve seen him time and again do the same thing. He slowly approaches the pair, waits for the mama to calm down, and quietly reaches in and tags the calf. It makes me almost embarrassed of my “tackle the calf and sit on it” approach; which seems so rough and clumsy in comparison to Clayton’s finesse.

A few days ago, we were out feeding and Clayton was carrying our 10 month old with him as he cut the strings. A day-old calf that he had tagged yesterday was lying in the grass nearby. Clayton approached the calf, petted him softly, and then placed our little girl next the calf. He quickly snapped this photo with his phone, and then they were on their way. The calf never even blinked at having his picture taken with our baby. Lucky me, to be married to this cowboy!

Baby girl, learn from your daddy, and maybe not so much from your mommy.

Bluffing cows

2010 was a good learning year for me. Like I’ve said before, Clayton was working nights, so during the week the brunt of responsibility for feeding the cows fell to me. I had some fun experiences and definitely grew in my skills and courage. I tagged 5 or 6 calves on my own, and each time was such a rush. Good times.

Enter 2011. I was pregnant (hooray!). Hence, I was somewhat limited in the things I could do to help with chores. I still carried water jugs when the horses’ water was frozen over, and fed the horses every morning, but I’d been doing that since before pregnancy and my body was used to it. Lifting 75lb hay bales, however, well, I don’t think my doctor would have approved. And Clayton and Joel wouldn’t have let me if I tried. My job was pretty intense: driving the truck. Yep, that’s right. I would back the truck up to the haystack, park it, and then . . . sit there while Clayton loads the hay. After the hay was loaded, I’d drive to the cow field and drive around while Clayton unloaded the hay. That is my normal job, even when I’m not pregnant, so I guess there’s no big change there. Let me tell you though, bumping around in the truck driving through the field when you’re 8 months pregnant feels a whole lot different than bumping around the truck when you’re not. It’s a wonder that my child wasn’t born with Shaken Baby Syndrome. Just kidding. I did crawl under a few barb wire fences, chasing calves, and I also assisted with three calf pullings. In fact, Clayton and Joel and some other family comedians would joke that when I went into labor, they would pull out the calf puller and chains and pull my baby out right there in the squeeze chute. When they made these hilarious jokes, I’d pretend to laugh, and then turn away so that they couldn’t see my entire body shudder. I definitely have some new-found sympathy for cows in labor, and especially for cows whose calf had to be pulled out.

And I’m sure I could have helped with some tagging and been just fine, but I decided to take it easy and let the boys do all the hard work. Clayton and Joseph had a “calf catcher”, which is basically just like a shepherd’s crook, that they would use to hook a calf on the leg, catch it, and tag it. It was a fairly effective way to catch the older calves that hadn’t yet been tagged, but after they had caught 3 or 4 calves on a Saturday morning, the herd was fairly riled up, convinced that the boys were torturing their babies. After that day, whenever they saw the calf catcher, the mamas would hurry off with their calves, nervous that another torture session was underway.

One day, after I’d been griping about how worthless I’d been feeling about not helping out more with the chores, Clayton tried to help me feel better. There was a new calf that needed tagging. Clayton said that he would hold the calf down for me, and all I had to do was slip the tag onto its ear. Piece of cake, right? We walk quietly over to the calf, who is laying a short distance away from where his mama and the rest of the herd are eating the hay that we’ve just delivered to them. Clayton quickly grabs the calf in a bear hug, feels between its legs to determine the gender (bull calves get tagged on the right ear, heifer calves on the left ear), and instructs me which ear to insert the tag. Now, if you’re imagining the calf calmly laying there while Clayton holds it, you’re imagining the wrong ranch. This calf wants to get away from scary old Clayton, and is thrashing about trying to get away, and crying for his mama. I can’t get a grip on his ear because he’s thrashing about so wildly. And hey, I’m 7 or 8 months pregnant. My usual bravado and boldness has been replaced by demure timidity to protect my unborn child. So I’m not being very brave, but am kind of waffling about, trying not very hard to get a hold of the ear of this very wiggly calf.

In the meantime . . . not only has the worried mama cow come over to protect her poor baby, but along with her comes about half of the herd, determined to help their own kind protect this innocent baby from the horrible humans. Picture this: Clayton, on the ground, wrestling wildly with the calf. Me, timidly standing to the side. And about 10 or 15 full-grown cows, surrounding us, mooing wildly, and making all kinds of threatening gestures at Clayton.

I wimp out even more, because I sure don’t want to get trampled by a bunch of crazed cows! And I don’t want the father of my unborn child to be killed on the ground in front of me, which seems to be about to happen. I yell to Clayton to just let the dang calf go, and he yells at me to hurry and tag the calf. I yell to Clayton that there’s no way I’m going to touch that dang calf because the cows will kill me if I do. He yells right back at me to hurry up and tag the calf. We’re yelling because the cows that are surrounding us are mooing really loud and if we didn’t yell, we couldn’t hear each other. We’re definitely not yelling because we’re angry. Right? After some strong “encouragement” from Clayton, I finally cowboy-up, dart in as quick as I can, grab the stupid ear of the stupid calf, and tag the dang thing. Then I chuck the tagging gun in Clayton’s direction, and take off at a quickstep for the safety of the truck.

Of course by this time I am crying, dang pregnancy hormones, and when Clayton catches up to me, unfazed from this seemingly life-threatening ordeal, he thinks I’m upset because he was yelling. In turn, I tell him that I thought he was going to be pulverized and that this is why I was so upset. He puts him arm around me and says, “Oh, there was nothing to be afraid of. Those cows are all bluff.”

That was bluffing? Boy, I’d hate to be around when the cows are telling the truth.

My cute and chubby pregnant self

My first solo tag

It was the winter/spring of 2010. Clayton worked late and didn’t get home until 9-10pm, so it was up to me to take care of feeding the cows. I’ve mentioned before that it’s a lot of work to feed on your own. But I’ll say it again. It’s a lot of work to feed on your own! Load the hay in the truck, watch out for skunks in the haystack, talk to the dogs while you’re driving to the field because there’s nobody else to talk to, open and close the gates, get out and throw a few bales off, get back in and drive a few yards, get out and throw a few bales off . . . you get the idea. It’s quite the task. But, like I said earlier, when the task falls to you, you do it. Because that’s responsibility. And I felt pretty cool back then. Nowadays, I’ve sadly lost some of my bravado, but that’s a story for another day. Maybe someday I’ll get my bravado back.

Back to the story. I was feeding the cows. Driving around the field, I noticed off in the distance that a newborn calf was curled up in the grass, patiently waiting for mama to return. “Here’s my big chance,” I thought. “I can tag this calf all by myself and then everyone will think I am so tough.” I finish feeding, park the truck a ways off, and of course, leave the dogs inside the cab. Don’t want no dogs chasing off the baby. I prepare a tag, load it in the tagging gun, and sneak up on the little fella. Now, I knew that the calf most likely wouldn’t just calmly lay there while I, a predator, came up and shoved this plastic tag through its ear. I knew I had to be sneaky, and I knew that I would have to hold the calf down. “Big deal,” I thought, “I’ve seen Clayton and the guys do it. I can totally handle this.” I pounced on the calf, and attempted to hold him down with one hand while holding the tagging gun with the other. I didn’t anticipate, however, that calves are big and strong. It’s not like handling a helpless tiny newborn kitten. Calves are born 50 pounds or so of precociousness, meaning they can stand up, walk, run, and suckle within an hour after being born. I don’t know exactly how old this new calf was, but he was strong enough to get away from me. I was about to lose my grip. The calf was thrashing around, trying to get away from his attacker, crying and bellering for his mama the whole time. I decided that drastic measures were necessary. I dropped the tagging gun on the ground, grabbed the calf with both hands, and then . . . I sat on him.

Well, he wouldn’t hold still! He was about to get away! I couldn’t confess to Clayton that I had almost tagged a calf and then let him get away! The shame! So, I sat on him. Straddled his little body between my knees, and then I put all of my 135 pounds on his measly 50 pounds and held that calf down. And I tagged him! All by myself! Let me tell you, during this whole time, my heart is seriously thumping. This is a huge adrenaline rush. The excitement of sneaking up on the calf before he runs away, trying to hold him down and then realizing that I couldn’t, sitting on the little bugger and then succeeding in tagging him, looking up and realizing that the mama cow is on her way to rescue her baby . . . Wait, what? The mama cow is on her way to rescue her baby? I am attacking her poor defenseless baby, and she is on her way to save him! I better get the heck out of here!

The mama, alerted that something was wrong by her baby’s cries for help, is seriously galloping towards me as fast as she can. Luckily for me, we were a pretty good distance away from where the herd was eating the hay that I so kindly delivered to them, so I had had plenty of time to wrestle with the calf and get the tag on before realizing that mama cow was on her way. She was still a good 20 or 30 yards away, but believe me, when you’re on the ground and you look up and see a cow running at you at full speed, your brain says, “Oh, crap.” I quickly got off the calf, ran to the truck and jumped inside. Safe and sound, just in the nick of time.

Tagging calves

Ahh, tagging calves. It can be so tricky. It can also be rather easy. If the calf is immobilized on a calf-table or in a squeeze chute, it's simple as pie. If the calf is older than a day or two old and is running free, it gets a lot harder to do on foot. Now if you have a good horse and a talent for roping, then that's a different story. Unfortunately, we are usually on foot when we are trying to tag, so we don't get the luxury of a roping horse to assist us.

An eartag is a way of identifying the calf and marking them as belonging to your ranch. You can get pre-printed tags with numbers on them like this:

You can even get all fancy and special order tags pre-printed with your ranch name and brand on the tag. Or you can buy blank tags and get special markers to write your own number and brand on them yourself. We usually go with this route, because it's cheaper and we can individualize them exactly how we want them. The number that you assign to each calf, well, I think every ranch has their own system of identification. Some assign the calf a number that correlates back to it's mother cow, while some assign just consecutive numbers. But what WE do for our numbering system looks like this: 1201--"12" being the year the calves were born, and "01" being the consecutive order that the calves were born. So this year, all of our calves will be tagged with first a "12" and then whatever number of calf they are in the order that they are born--from "01" to "26". Does that make sense?

The reason we tag the calves as soon as they are born is to mark them as belonging to us, in case any cattle rustlers come along and try to steal them. Also, it's helpful to us to tag the calves so that each day, as we are out feeding the cattle, we can see an unmarked baby and know that it is a new calf. Unfortunately, we don't have the manpower to tag each calf immediately after it's born, so while we try to tag as many of them as we can, there's a handful that get away and have to wait.

The eartag gun looks like this:

It's fairly similar to a human getting their ear pierced. You load the tag onto the gun, load the "earring back" onto the sharp point, place the gun onto the earlobe of the calf, and squeeze. Voila, you have a beautifully tagged calf.

As you can see, this calf was born in 2011 and was the 7th calf born that year.

Stay tuned for several adrenaline-pumping tagging stories!

Grandpa & the Rodeo Bulls

This is a favorite family story, and it's about a very special person. Grandpa Sagers. Unfortunately, Grandpa Sagers is no longer with us, but his impact on our lives is still felt today. I didn't know him extremely well, but Clayton and I always enjoyed spending the occasional night at Grandma & Grandpa's house, or going over for dinner. I loved hearing his stories about their mission in Africa, going to big band dances at Saltaire, and of course, his stories about the farm. Grandpa Sagers was very conscientious and hard-working when it came to the cows. He very rarely went on vacation because he was worried that something might happen to the cows while he was away. He farmed and took care of the cows until he had a series of strokes back in, oh, maybe 2004-ish? I don't remember the exact date. But he worked very hard every day until he was no longer able to do so. Grandpa was pretty tall, and apparently hit his head on various objects while working, so he went about doing his farm work wearing a hard hat, which protected his head from bumps and bruises. One of his young grandsons, when asked in school to draw a picture of a farmer, drew a picture of his Grandpa Sagers with his hard hat on. The teacher tried to inform the child that farmers don't wear hard hats, but the child insisted, "My Grandpa is a farmer and this is the kind of hat that he always wears!" He was very strong-willed and stubborn, which is a trait that was passed on to just about all of his many descendents. One of my ABSOLUTE favorite Grandpa Sagers stories took place when Grandpa was having an argument with Uncle Larry. It just makes me giggle every time I hear it. I'll have to share it with you some other time.

But the story I'd like to tell you today is the story of Grandpa and the rodeo bulls. Once upon a time, several rodeo bulls broke down some fences and got into our field, and started mingling with our cows. You've all seen a rodeo, right? Rodeo livestock is sometimes called "rough stock", which is pretty self-explanatory. Rough stock are rough, wild, and unpredictable. Grandpa rode out on his faithful steed, Trinket, to sort out the rodeo bulls and drive them back to where they belonged.

Here's Trinket in her later years. She was a tough little cow pony in her day.

Anyway, back to the story. Trinket and Grandpa were sorting out the bulls, when one of the bulls decided that he had had enough of them. The bull charged Trinket, and actually knocked her off her feet. Grandpa fell off the horse and was still on the ground when the bull decided to come after him. If you're on the ground, having recently been knocked off your horse and an angry bull comes after you, you're in no position to bargain. You're lucky if you can scramble to your feet quickly enough to try to run away before he gets ya.

As luck would have it, on this day Grandpa also had his trusty dog, Grizz, with him. Grizz saw what was happening, saw his master on the ground about to be trampled, and Grizz took charge. He ran at the bull before it could get to Grandpa, bit the bull on the nose, and held on until Grandpa could get up and get back to his horse. Grizz saved Grandpa's life, or at least saved him from some pretty severe injuries.

I don't have a picture of Grizz but I'm told that he looked a lot like this dog:

Thanks Grizz, for saving Grandpa!

And here's a picture of the man himself.

We love you, Grandpa Sagers!