My first family cow…

Every species is prone to bribery. Bring food, back off to an uncomfortable but non-threatening distance, allow her to eat, take food away when you leave. Repeat more often than the normal meal schedule until she eats all her food in a meal. If you can’t spend that much time with her, let her free feed a low-value food and use a high-value food for training. Then slowly decrease the comfort distance until she eats food right next to you, and looks happy to see you when you enter her enclosure with food.

Hopefully a cow person will give you more specific advice.

I’m not opposed to showing an animal who’s boss, but I usually like to start from a position of the animal being comfortable and happy with my presence, so backing off the force has a reward effect rather than making them think of an escape opportunity. I don’t want to start any battles I can’t finish and end with a period of affection and reward. Before that point I only restrain for their own safety, I don’t try to make them do anything.

I was in this situation a while back when I bought a supposedly well handled cow from a neighbour which turned out to be very unco-operative to the point of being dangerous when I tried close handling and milking her.
Admittedly feeding and regular contact will gentle a cow over time but not enough to get her as steady as I wanted (safe enough for special needs teenagers to work with).
My experience now tells me that the only way to really have a bovine who is totally steady is for that animal to see you as being 100% in charge. A friend who shows cattle and halter trains them at a year or so when she can really see their confirmation said that she battles them into a halter then ties them onto her tractor with another person holding a second rope off the halter. She drives the tractor at a very low speed until the beast walks without fighting with the second person also walking alongside, giving the impression that its the handler overpowering the cow. Once she walks steadily (maybe after a few attempts) they take away the tractor, and as the cow has the impression that you’re as strong as a tractor they follow!!
I personally don’t want to get involved in all that malarchy and by far the best experience I’ve had is to buy calves as young as possible from a dairy farm, the earlier the better. They immediately connect to you as you will be the one providing milk and are vastly easier to handle as they get older with very little battling to establish yourself as leader.
If you’re fixed on having Highland cattle then this will be difficult as they’re run as suckler herds and nobody with sucklers will wean before 4-5 months in my experience. Halter training a 6 month animal requires a lot of will and determination, they’re strong! Remember they need to see you as the dominant force.
If it were me I’d feed you’re new friend, get her settled with a view to having some good Highland beef in 12-18 months and look around locally for a small dairy who has some calves. For home use even a beef cross will do, a friend milks a Hereford/Holstein who although she doesn’t produce quite the vast quantities a pure bred Holstein might she produces ample milk and is much healthier than some highly bred super dairy cow and has a lovely temperament. Hope that’s of some use…Ed

Having never worked with highlanders, I can only say that I have heard they can be inherently wild….

Just spending time in the stall will work. Food/feeding will work. It s not bribery as much as distraction. I use a dish of grain to distract an animal while I approach them to just lay hands on…. then more. etc.I know you are patient enough.

Cattle have the same type of response to space pressure…. I mean they have the same sensitivity to it, but since their defense is on their heads, they don’t always run. If you don’t run, then they will have to decide how they deal with that. You will use the same set of rules, just with a different set of responses…. which with observation you will learn.

As far as being in charge, it is all in the carriage. However, you will need to be prepared to defend yourself much more than with a horse. This may be your biggest challenge, as you are conditioned to pushing off a horse with much less effort.

Have fun, and be safe……. Hot lead injection can always solve the worst situation…..

Carl

I’ve tamed yaks indeed by (once they are accustomed to my presence) getting them in the round pen and coaxing them with a bucket of grain. Once they’re eating out of the bucket, you can get the odd head scratch in. Once they get used to that, I lassoed them around the horns and tied them short to one of the posts. (I dropped the loop over the horns when they were used to eating out of and engaged in the bucket – if they were too cagey for this, I did it cowboy style. But some got quickly to the point where you could simply drop the loop over their horns and tighten it without them really caring.) Pet them with a stick all over, eventually moving in over the days and substituting your hand. Then you can work at getting them to lead by coaxing them after you on the halter and rope using the grain bucket and pressure/release. The grain of course gives them the added incentive to follow, getting used to the pressure/release in the meantime.

One or two, however, were untamable. And one was aggressive, charging me in the pen. Got rid of her.

Charging calves were in my experience a different story. Once they were accustomed to me in a setting where they didn’t feel cornered, and no longer particularly fearful, if they still insisted on charging, I then considered it perhaps a hierarchy thing. I responded to this by throwing them down and pinning them. One or two experiences like this and they understood where they ranked with me and quit the charging behavior. But i don’t think this would be productive with a calf that still had a lot of fear.

I agree with Clayfoot that you have to be boss. This is why tying them to the post seems to work. Let them know they are impotent to resist your advances, and that you’re gentle at the same time. I know of a guy who broke a large bison (to ride!) this way. Story goes it fought the rope for two weeks straight then resigned and he could do anything with it – including riding it to get his mail.

I have a lot more experience with horses than cattle, but i would say i find older cattle less tractable and more stubborn than horses.

@jenjudkins 21745 wrote:

I don’t know, Gulo….Pinning this heifer seems like a huge feat! I hope it doesn’t come to that! Though if is comes down to me or her….you can bet I will win, lol:p

If she’s big enough to have horns, you might be wise to skip this step.

I think this was the stage where our ancestors invented the rope. 😉

@jenjudkins 21722 wrote:

Over the weekend I picked up a young (6 months or so) highlander heifer. I must say, I was surprised at how wild she is, and am wondering if I bit off more than I can chew. We got her successfully into the barn and a 12 x 12 foot stall. But she tries to ram me everytime I attempt to get into the stall to bring her food or water. I suppose she will settle over a few days.

My plan for her depends entirely on how easy she is to work with. Her final destination will be the freezer, but when that happens ….well, it just depends.

Any advice on how to tame the wild animal in her? Do cows respond positively to approach and retreat, like horses do? Desensitization? Or do I have to simply get in there and show her who’s boss? I’m a horse person. This is my first cow experience. Thanks.

Jen,

Not sure how much time you intend to spend taming your heifer that is headed for the deep freeze, but whatever works for you …

If you only mean to be able to work around her; clean her pen, feed and water her etc then the process that Erika described will work fine. If for some reason you decide to halter break her, the part where she said to tie the calf up is the way to start that process as well.

Never worked with any Highland cattle, in fact have only seen them one time. However they can’t be any wilder than the Brahman cross cattle that are common around here & I have “tamed” several of them, or at least calmed them down enough to get them on feed. Just take it slow and easy and she should do fine …

Good luck with her.

OldKat