Well tonight sucked BIG time! The cattle transport was late and when we met him, some other people failed to shut their trailer door fast enough and their heifer escaped. So three truck & trailers and people trying to catch a heifer on a road that runs parallel to I-5. Luckily there was a fence separating this road and the interstate and a large irrigation ditch on the other side. We chased this heifer for over an hour finally getting her loaded back in to the originally trailer. The transfer was done again this time successfully but the heifer was all checked out by this time and a wild maniac. So then we managed to get our steer transferred with no issues to our trailer and we finally got home about 10:15. The best place to get a halter on the steer is inside the trailer, so since I had loaded the steer and pet him with no issues, I went in to put a halter on the steer. I expected a bit of a challenge but I did not expect the steer to come after me, nor did I expect Dale to lock me in the trailer. The steer proceeded to knock me down and ram me in to the rear door while it seemed to take Dale forever to open the door. When the door finally opened, the steer gave me one final head butt knocking me out of the trailer and leaping on Dale and I both. What followed was no fun as then we had a loose steer in our back yard. We did manage to finally get the wound up steer in to a box stall. We put grain in the stall and Dale went in to try and get a halter on him this time. the steer went after him so Dale got a shovel and when the steer did it again Dale cold cocked him but this only made the steer madder and he butted Dale repeatedly. Dale came flying out of the stall with the steer. More herding took place and we finally got him cornered and I got a halter on him using a show stick to slip it on him from a distance. Once we got the steer to a tie rack we tied him up and let him chill a few minutes and started scratching on him. Dale then managed to get the steer out to the pen. Needless to say Dale & I are both battered some. I just took a Percocet. My bad knee and ankle got bent funky, my neck hurts and my right arm is sore. I am glad though that Grace is ok and that Dale & I are no worse for wear. I have learned a lesson though. I will not ever unload or try to halter a new calf in the dark. It will stay in the trailer until the next morning when its had a chance to calm down form the trip and it & I can see. Oh and the calf while a bit thin, looks pretty nice.
Posted on: Sun, 30 Nov 2014 07:39:44 +0000
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