when starting – what do you prefer: calf or youngster

[sanhestar]

Hello,

what do you prefer when you’re starting a new team?

bucket-raised calves or young cattle (raised on the mother), that have to be tamed?

Please add pros and cons of both options, f.e. time consuming bucket feeding vs. time consuming taming. Calves that are too much imprinted on people vs. properly imprinted on other cattle, etc., etc.

If you’d choose young mother raised cattle, what do you look for in terms of character and temperament?

I so wish that I already had starting literature but the books will still take a while to get here. So thanks in advance for your insights.

[Anonymous]

I would suggest for a first team to start with bottle fed calves. They will be much easier to lead and handle than calves that are not tame. Establishing dominance over your calves from the beginning is very important and can be tricky to do with older calves that have not been handled before. In starting older animals in particular, it requires cleverness so that they never realize that they are more powerful than you are.

[Howie]

The best time to start them is right after they come off of collostrum. Bottle feed them and convience them that you are their mother. What wouldn’t you do for your mother? Train and correct them the same as your mother did you.
You can tell a lot about what a pair of steers will be by what their mothers are. If their mothers match they most likely will also, if they are out of the same bull.

[sanhestar]

hello,

thanks so far for your responses.

If possible I would like to here in more detail, if someone out there has trained mother raised calves/youngsters and compared them to bottle-fed calves.

I think I wrote already that I have experience in braking horses and taming goats, not yet with cattle. The horses I worked with mostly had the following background:

raised in a big herd on the mother, with as little human contact as possible (to keep them respectful against people). Taken in for halter training after weaning at age of 6 months for a few weeks, then turned out again for 3 more years. When they come in at age 3 they are rough, fairly wild but won’t challenge you much. They get roundpen training, join-up and then the basic training starts. I should also say that I talk about Icelandic horses which are in many ways different from other horses in terms of character and temperament. I also worked with adult horses from Iceland which didn’t have basic training before shipping and needed serious taming.

To get you more specific information on the background of my question:

I have the choice between calves from a dairy, bottle-fed, born in the last months or, at the moment only one in the herd, a 5 month old heifer, mother raised. She’s interested in people, comes up to the fence, starts licking my sleeve and is all in all very eager to make and hold contact (I stood in the corral for about 15 minutes and she stood beside me, whereas the other youngster stood back; she also seems to be very high in rank among the young ones). Other heifers of that herd are much more laid-back but all show interest in people with different grades of personal flight zones. When I visited a second time it took only a couple of minutes for her to show up at the fence and get in contact.

I don’t want to make the mistake to compare cattle and horses 1:1, so I appreciate any details I can get.

[Rod]

I have a very friendly steer calf, 9 months old but when he is on lead or in training he is very willfull and stuborn. Loves people and attention but not so crazy about training and work. The two in his case do not equate. Myself I would prefer a little more compliant steer even if he wasen’t as affectionate.

[Carl Russell]

I have worked with both, bottle fed two-week old twins, and 3 month old bull calves that had run in a free stall.

The bottle fed calves were compliant from the get-go. I started asserting my initiative right away, and they learned to follow my lead unflinchingly.

We never could overcome the independence that the mother raised calves had developed. I lost track of them after they were a couple of years old, although they could be handled and driven, would follow commands, I always felt they were too free-willed to ever make fine working animals.

I also worked with a three month old horse, handled and imprinted from birth, and a 3 year old basically corralled and cared for, but not really handled much. Although the imprinted youngster was by far the best work horse I’ve had to date, the older horses seem to be more willing to take the guidance, than their bovine counterparts.

That is not to say that older, untrained animals cannot become fine working animals, just when starting out, it probably would be best to start with bottle-fed calves.

Carl

[mstacy]

I purchased two pairs of Devons in October. The pail-fed pair were friendly and docile from the get go and responding to voice commands within two days. They made me feel like a hero.

Then the pasture raised pair arrived! The were about the same age but more like wild animals by comparison. They have come around but it’s taken months of effort.

I’m working both pairs in yolk now. They can pull a sled full of firewood and chain skid very small logs through the snow. They’ve pulled a crude snow plow to clear the driveway as well.

The pail-fed pair is very docile now but it took a long time to get here.

[jen judkins]

Matt, I’m curious as to why you started with 2 pair? And did you plan to get a ‘pail fed’ pair as well as a ‘pasture fed’ pair? and why? Its an interesting situation and you are in a perfect position to answer Sanhestar’s question. I’d be interested to hear how you decided upon these 4 oxen.

And I’ve enjoyed hearing about your progress with them…

[becorson]

For what my opinion is worth: I agree with the posts above that recommend human-raised calves over cow-raised calves. (with the small caveat that it probably does depend a little on the breed. that is, a cow-raised brown swiss pair might be as cooperative as a bottle raised chianina pair. but breeding and other things being equal, the calves will have the highest respect and the most love the species that fed them. )

this can be a BiG plus if you like your team to be willing and happy workers. i have only had oxen that i raised “from little up”, but i know several teamsters who do it the other way, and i think some people actually relish the challange of trying to overcome the resistance that a pair of cow-raised steers inevitably puts up. for some reason, it doesn’t seem as easy to get a steers respect and love as it is to win over a horse. we have all heard stories of wild mustangs that were trained right and who would now go through fire and water for their owner/ trainer. it seems to me that this doesn’t happen quite the same way with cattle… but that might just be my lack of experience.

i like taking care of animals even more than working them, so raising calves is a big part of the fun for me. they are so easily managed when they are little! you don’t even need a stall, you can tie them up for the first week or so.
if you get 1000 pound untamed animals, you had better have some good fencing and someplace stout to tie them to!
Of course, unweaned calves need to be fed twice a day, no skipping a feeding because you have the flu , and that is not everyone’s cup of tea. Calfhood diseases (like various types of diarrhea and pneumonia) can also crop up , and then you may have a little extra trouble getting them over that… but if you get them from a well managed farm where they get the colostrum they need and if you are regular with your care of them, calves are very hardy. older cattle are not immune to sickness anyway.

the expense of getting calves is much lower, especially right now, dairy farmers are getting next to nothing for the bull calves at least in Pa.

hope some of this is useful.

[sanhestar]

thanks for all the opinions and experiences.

For what it’s worth: I agreed with the owner of the herd of mother-raised cattle that I can have my pick from last years calves and introduce myself to them over the next weeks to see which ones respond well to first training steps.

Maybe no cow will turn out to be fit for working but I’ve already got tons of insights on cattle behaviour. They live in a well fenced, not too large pasture right now.

I started with elements from “joining up” and found that they respond to the same body positions as horses (I’m keeping updates about the training sessions, as well).

I will give it till April and if I don’t have a workable result before grazing season begins I will look for calves.

[fabian]

I think, it has something to do with what you expect from your animals.
I must not have a showteam, I don’t refuse using of a halter-rope. I only need a team which goes when it should go, which stands when it should stand, which goes left/right, when left/right is requested and back, when they should do this.
I have used up to now only mother raised calves and it works. Ok. They are not from a big herd and the mothers are used to be handled.

[sanhestar]

After having spent almost an hour a few days ago with the heifers in question (second time now), I think, the biggest challenge is that they are still running with the herd.

Although the mother cows are fixed in a feeding panel, there are enough younger calves and bulls the same age as the heifers that can provide “cover” from me.

But this was also interesting to experience. Which heifer prevers which bull calve as protector and which bull calve will step up to the job. Luckily all of them are really soft in regard to body language and will move easily away from me when I ask them to.

I think I will ask the owner of the herd if she can provide some seperation pen where I can work with one heifer at a time. I’ll also observe how she acts towards the heifers, if she chases them off a lot or allows them to come nearer.

I was able to give Emma a good and long rubbing session when she wedged herself between to older cows at the feeding panel. She enjoyed it clearly, started to eat and ruminate. She still can’t bear me when she’s “out in the open”, though.

I realize that many of you may shake your heads about this foolishness: why not go the short way and buy calves? Well, I can only explain it with my stubbornness. Calves don’t feel “right” for me at the moment.

[Howie]

sanhestar

You want to listen to all this advice, and then run it through a strainer to get all the bs out of it. Use what makes sense to you.

P.S. There is no right and wrong way to train cattle. Just my way and your way.

[fabian]

@sanhestar 5409 wrote:

…. why not go the short way and buy calves? QUOTE]

I do not agree, that buying calves is “the short way”. Calves have to be fed two times a day with milk or milkpowder milk. It takes time to get the first and bring it on temperature and the second way (powder milk) is in the EU not without shortfalls since the content of animal fats in it is forbidden (because of BSE).
It needs some time until you can hitch them up.
I prefer “learning by doing”. Teaching the animals to go at a halter and then hitch them up within three days. So they can learn the commands while pulling their first (light) load. Ok, I have always an experienced teammate, which helps me training the novice, like it was usual in my area. Molly, my two year old off cow was hitched after four lessons with a sledge to a waggon. And it worked good. I think she saw the calmness of her mother and so the noise of the iron-wheeled waggon didn’t disturb her.

Which breed is the heifer you are in contact with ?

With a sorry for my clumsy English
Wolfgang

[sanhestar]

Wolfgang,

I’m going for the real hard cases 🙂

Rotes Höhenvieh aka Devon.

Sabine

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