Cow Catching and off to market

vendredi 22 avril 2016

So it is Tues and nice and dry. Perfect to get my truck and trailer through the pasture without rutting it up, and load the old cow up for a trip to the butcher. Me and the wife start about 1330 and remain calm as we try to lure her to the trailer with her daily serving of grain. Granted, this cow has always been sketchy, but that doesnt mean she cant be lured with grain right?

So, after shaking the scoop, banging the bucket, letting the cows through the fence take interest, and by default gaining her interest, I couldnt get her any closer than 15 feet from the open end of the trailer. With rain due in the next 24 hrs, and a date with the butcher scheduled, I had to get her loaded. I am a patient man, but time really is of the essence. So now its 1800 and I still have an hours worth of chores to do let alone eat dinner, I resort to the interweb to an ad I had read, really my only last resort. Cow Catching

I live in Southern Illinois now. But I have lived the last 22 yrs in the mountain west surounded by cattlemen and cowboys. In SI, its usually just factory farms and little guys with a few head of livestock. This isnt Cheyenne Wy., North Platte Ne., or Mesquite Nv., where horesmanship is a common theme. So I call this number. The guy tells me him and his buddy catch cows that bust fences, or turn feral, or in any way refuse to be handled, they handle them. I say, I have a job for them. He says he will need to get his truck and trailer into my pasture but other than that, he will get the old girl into my trailer.

Now we didnt think to get a camera out till the show is almost over, and actual shots of the trailer to trailer transfer didnt happen because that is exactly when the downpour started. But you can see in the pics, it is less than 5 min out. She was pretty sketchy still, but they worked well and did their job without crashing my fence, which was my biggest fear other than losing her to the wild or letting her grow old and die in my pasture.

One roped her neck, while the other caught an ankle. She fought at first until she saw it was pointless, then they led her to the trailer. The ankle man dismounted and lossed is rope, then ran to the truck for a prod. When he returned the mounted man with the neck rope worked his rope over the top of the trailer. When the timing was right, he started pulling her. But being hard headed, she wasnt going anywhere. Then Mr. Cattle prod steps up to give her a little nudge. I watched him do this 3-4 times and she never flinched. Then he did exactly what I or anyone of us would do. He laid it on her inner thigh and didnt move it. About 5 seconds later she found the energy to take the last 2 steps into the trailer. Thats the last pic where you see him behind her.

Now on Tues my wife was a little pissed at me for calling the guys out here. But after watching them, and how the cow fought, we agreed this was the best 250 bucks we ever spent. I know alot about alot of things, just not enough to do the entire job myself. There is no way in gods green earth I could have done what they did and wonder just what in the hell would I have done if these guys wouldnt have taken the time to learn a trade like this out here in Southern Illinois. I got spoiled up there in Utah where I could just call for a kill truck to come to my farm and shoot and skin my cow/hogs and deliver them to the butcher for me. Southern Illinois doesnt have them at all, and most butchers are even enamored by the idea of even their existence. By the way, I followed the guys out of the pasture in the rain and it rained 2.5 inches Tues night. I dropped her off yesterday at the butchers place. When I got home, it started raining again, and rained another 2.5 inches. It would be another 2 weeks before I could get wheeled vehicles out there without sinking up to the axles. They came withing 24hrs of my call.

Thank God for the Horsemen and the American way of life.