Here I go again asking for help

[redtailgal]

Well, chasin cows IS good exercise.


If you have access to a fence charger, it would be a good thing. Electric fence will do the trick.

If you dont have one, good luck!

 

[Roy and Vicky]

The hog fence area would just be for about two weeks. After that he'll be out in the big pasture, we just have to have time to get a section of it fenced off for him so that he is easier to deal with out there than about an acre of pasture lol I guess I can always wave the bottle at him.

 

[Cricket]

One thing that I've found to work well is to give them grain in a 'special' bucket--ours is the magic blue bucket. Then if he gets out or you need to catch him (or 'gasp' load him in the beef truck), he'll just think he's going for happy food. People laugh at you (and NOT kindly!) if you're waving a bottle in a big old steer's face, esp. if it works.

 

[redtailgal]

lol, I've gone out waving a bottle at a big ole steer before. Let them laugh! They just dont know the good life when they see it.

One thing I do with all my animals is the "secret code word". Its a method that I picked up when training hawks. It worked AMAZING with them, so I thought I'd implement it with my other critters as well. When I feed them, be it their meal or just a treat, I say the same word before I give give them the food. The goats hear "who's hungry" the dogs hear "wanna bite", and the iguana hears "food time". It works.

I can go out to the pasture and yell "here goats" and get IGNORED. But when I say "WHO"S HUNGRY"...........It looks like a lil goatie stampede. jus' don' git in da way!

 

[Roy and Vicky]

I Love it LOL. I can see me out there yelling here Duh !!!! I guess I always call him Pretty Boy so maybe that would work.

When I take him over to the kennel in the daytime I put the harness on him, he doesn't always like it but he's learning there is grass and yummies over there for him so he's going a little better now. When it's time to go back of course I have his bottle in my hand so he's very eager to go with me. I mess with him a little and let him kick and play around. usually Roy is out there with me and he'll go from me to him and do a little shoving to see if either of us is going to give him the bottle, it's rather cute. When he's being "loving" he'll walk around me just rubbing against me or put his head against my leg and push up and down my leg with the top of his head til I reach down and pet him. He loves under his chin rubbed and will raise his head up so I can rub him.

 

[WildRoseBeef]

Uh oh, I think someone's teaching someone some bad habits! Now would be a good time to teach him that rubbing his head on your thigh or leg is bad. You're teaching him that rubbing his head on your leg is good because you keep wanting to pet him. You'll have to start to NOT pet him when he does this, and pet him when he DOESN'T rub your leg. It'll be a hard habit to break, but it'll do you good when he gets to be a big steer!

 

[redtailgal]

A couple years ago, I raised out a Holstien steer, he grew to be the size of an elephant by the time he was a year old. I named him "Beuford" but I called him "good lil cheeseburger", and he liked me. Only me. Wouldnt lead for anyone but me, head butted other people, was a general PITA to everyone else. But, I had the secret. If you scratched Beuford just under his ear, almost going into the ear with one finger, he would literally roll his eyes back in his head and MOAN. He would lean into it so bad, that if I pulled my hand away, he would almost fall over, even when he was 1600 pounds!

and just in case you are wondering, he WAS a good cheeseburger!

 

[Roy and Vicky]

I am absolutely rotten with him. He's spoiled, this i know. I'm just counting the minutes now til I get to go home from work to see if he ate any of his grain today!!! Hopefully this afternoon I'll get some pictures posted to show how scrawny he is!!! Freaks me out!

I try to walk him around the yard some before i put him in the kennel to keep consistent on him being in the harness. It's a homemade one, but until he grows into the other one it works for now, except when it slips off his ear when he's bucking around lol.

Red I can picture you out there rubbing a big ass steers ear and leading it around hehehe. I want to be able to do that with Duh so that it's easier to deal with him.

I want to get him out of the chicken coup as soon as possible so I can get it cleaned up and ready for some fast grow chickens and get it insulated so we don't have to worry about freezing water in the winter.

I'm pretty excited for more animals!!!!! Want chickens in the coup, pigs in the pig pen area, and garden in it's area. Gotta thin out the raspberrys this weekend they have over taken part of the chicken yard since it hasn't been used in years and the raspberrys are as big as your thumb and delicious but they need to be tamed!!!!

Since we signed the paperwork on the house, I swear sometimes we just sit there and stare out in the pasture and dream of Duh out there running around and the garden up and going. Roy has about 70 tomato plants at the house that are looking wonderful, man does he have a green thumb!! he has my buttercup squash going, red warty pumpkins, and straight eight cukes. I've got a ton of flowers going, holy cow, chinese lanterns, a few different colored pansys, nasty's, carnations, zinnias, coleus, and i'm sure i'm forgetting a few. There is not a free window sill in our house, then there is a shelf with some of the tomatoes on it under grow lights, and an office desk with lots of plants on it under grow lights too. and fans running everywhere to condition then to be outside!!! Some of the tomato plants are close to a foot tall now !!!!!! YUMMY

 

[Stubbornhillfarm]

rtg, Unitl you mentioned it, I didn't even think of a secret word. But I guess we have one too. When we go out with the feed buckets, we tell them, "line up" and they do.

Yep, all of those cute little bad habits that we encourage before we know the difference. We still have one steer that wants to chew on your clothes all the time. He'll do well for a while and then right back into it.

Can't wait to see updated pics of Duh.

 

[Roy and Vicky]

I put up a few pics of Duh in a new thread.