Ideas on rehabilatating a crazy cow

I just got finished with a late night rodeo that included a busted faucet and a near death experience for me, but all things aside I finally penned a cow I've been trying to catch for 2 months.

Here's her background:

She doesn't come from psycho parents, her dam is very calm and so was her sire. She's a 5 year old that has always been a little silly, but nothing to raise alarm. Just kind of afraid of people. Anyway, when I was getting my cows up from the pasture to AI, she ran out of the catch pen before I could shut the gate and it has all been downhill since then. She runs away from my truck when I call her for cubes and when we penned her tonight, well, I explained above. She's a really really good cow and has great calves. Right now she's in our dry lot with a few other tame cows that we put out with her to help with catching her. I'm afraid to turn her back out in a pasture and am considering getting rid of her because I don't tolerate crazies. So I'm wondering if any of you cow whisperers have ideas about how to rehabilitate her.

Thanks!

Maybe she came out of the cow oxygen deprived which messed with her head making her crazy.  <beer>

Im not sure how you could fix it.

Hope you find a way.

I'm guessing not so much unless you keep her penned for awhile... Are the calves worth keeping a loony toon and having near death experiences? I'd sell her..

LinZ

I like the get rid of her part my self. Somebody's going to get hurt and I know it's not going to be me.

I recently bought 29 cows from the sale barn. 3 of them were the meanest craziest cows I've ever seen. The rest are alright. Luckily nobody got hurt and we got them back into the sale barn to get their heads chopped off. Do what you have to do.

The best way to rehabilate that cow is to eliminate her--no matter how good you think she is.  She will end up teaching her bad ways to all her calves and many others in your herd.  I have had a few like her in the past and they will either get you hurt of mess things up when you are trying to gather and work the herd.  They exist in all breeds and should be eliminated unless you are raising bucking stock.  Good luck whatever you decide.

Not wanting to come in and trying to kill you when you get them in the pen are two different things.

The Charolais cow in my avatar is a real good one, but she goes nuts if you ever get her by herself.  We didn't realize it till last year.  She had a good but late calf and we were going to bring her and her calf to town to speed him along.  When we separated her, she flipped out, literally went through a sucker rod pen (don't know how she did without breaking her neck), and we barely got her turned out to the pasture before she killed herself or us.  This year, we know better than separaing her and she did fine through the synchronization and AI process.

We had a two year old heifer this year hit the eject button when trying to take them from the catch trap to the lot.  She jumped the fence and got out by herself.  We wound up turning about 10 head more out with her to get her to slow down.  We eventually got her in the pen the next day, but she was still obviously a "jumper".  She got a one way trip to the sale barn immediately.

Short story - if your problem isn't just her freaking out when she gets by herself, you might as well get rid of her.  They wil cause you trouble with the rest of your herd at a very inopportune time.

I have absolutely NO tolerance for cows like this. Whether she attacks you when you catch her or not. She runs from the very sight of people. One wild cow will and DOES stir the entire herd up. You have to watch your back around her, and even walking through the herd when you pen them is taking a chance. Who knows when she might just snap completely and attack you. When you get her in essentially you are cornering her, as you've cut off all her escape routes.

I doubt that this type of cow will be rehabilitatable, most likely you will make her worse, the more you work with her. Who knows why she is this way, but sometimes you get one like this for no reason. Personally, now that you have her caught I'd have her on the next truck to the sale barn. Breathe a sigh of relief when she's gone.

I'm of the belief, that it doesn't matter how good her calves are/were if she kills you or someone else......

agree with those above... super wild cattle will haunt you for years to come if allowed to reproduce...  that is hereditary...  matter of fact while breaking spring bull calves yesterday, one that was a candidate- is no longer a candidate- and got the rubber band!! 

who know, you may not be able to catch her again!!  been there done that... slug gun works well for catching them the 2nd time after 2 years of running a stalk field cuz she won't be "caught" again... 

No reason to risk anyone getting hurt! as long as you got her penned you might as well load her up and take her to town.

I agree with the comments posted above. There are enough quiet cows on the planet for all of us.I have zero tolerance for cows like this. I don't care if she has produced 5 Houston champion steers, she should have an appointment to meet her Maker.The worst part of cows like this, is that they will affect the rest of the cows in your herd in a negative way. One cow that runs away when you drive into the pasture, will soon have all the cows on edge. Some cows can be pains in the butt, but they are still workable and reasonable. Cows like you have described here should be gone. Get her loaded and don't wave good bye. If she won't load, slow her down with a few ounces of lead between the eyes and plant her in the back forty.... then forget she ever existed. This cow is just like every person on earth... we are all replaceable.

Get rid of her asap. I have gotten rid of some good ones in my small amount of time I have been involved with cattle.  The one that irritates me the most is an et calf i had out of Double D Black Chyna.  Halter broke her as a calf kicked her in with the rest of the open heifers and when we went to ai her the next year she was loony tunes anytime you had to work with cows got her bred and got an awesome dream on heifer and thought about flushin her or keepin her around but long story short its not worth someone getting hurt and the aggravation when working with the rest of the cows.

Thanks for all the replies.

This cow has never been a problem before, she has never attacked anyone and last night what happened was I was guarding the weak spot in the pen where I knew she would try to jump out and when we went to push the cows into the alley to load up she went straight for the weak spot. I was sitting on top of the gate while she was banging on it, but she eventually turned around and went back to the group of cows. We were lucky we loaded her at night because if it was daylight I'm sure she would've jumped over the gate. I forgot to mention last night that I had penned up the cows and her calf and was waiting it out until she wandered up in the pen. By then she was really agitated and all this happened at night so she couldn't see anything and there were four of us in the pen trying to get them all loaded.

Now that she's up in the pen she's settled down, no pacing the fence line or bawling. She'll be up in the pen for the next week so I guess I can see if this was a fluke incident or find out if she's ruined. I'm kinda leaning towards the "she's ruined."

LN said:

Thanks for all the replies.

This cow has never been a problem before, she has never attacked anyone and last night what happened was I was guarding the weak spot in the pen where I knew she would try to jump out and when we went to push the cows into the alley to load up she went straight for the weak spot. I was sitting on top of the gate while she was banging on it, but she eventually turned around and went back to the group of cows. We were lucky we loaded her at night because if it was daylight I'm sure she would've jumped over the gate. I forgot to mention last night that I had penned up the cows and her calf and was waiting it out until she wandered up in the pen. By then she was really agitated and all this happened at night so she couldn't see anything and there were four of us in the pen trying to get them all loaded.

Now that she's up in the pen she's settled down, no pacing the fence line or bawling. She'll be up in the pen for the next week so I guess I can see if this was a fluke incident or find out if she's ruined. I'm kinda leaning towards the "she's ruined."

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Sometimes those dang cows just get worked up. Might just want to let her settle and see what she is like this morning.

nck21 said:

I recently bought 29 cows from the sale barn. 3 of them were the meanest craziest cows I've ever seen. The rest are alright. Luckily nobody got hurt and we got them back into the sale barn to get their heads chopped off. Do what you have to do.

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thats why they're at the sale barn

LN said:

Thanks for all the replies.

This cow has never been a problem before, she has never attacked anyone and last night what happened was I was guarding the weak spot in the pen where I knew she would try to jump out and when we went to push the cows into the alley to load up she went straight for the weak spot. I was sitting on top of the gate while she was banging on it, but she eventually turned around and went back to the group of cows. We were lucky we loaded her at night because if it was daylight I'm sure she would've jumped over the gate. I forgot to mention last night that I had penned up the cows and her calf and was waiting it out until she wandered up in the pen. By then she was really agitated and all this happened at night so she couldn't see anything and there were four of us in the pen trying to get them all loaded.

Now that she's up in the pen she's settled down, no pacing the fence line or bawling. She'll be up in the pen for the next week so I guess I can see if this was a fluke incident or find out if she's ruined. I'm kinda leaning towards the "she's ruined."

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If you had her separated from her baby and she knew she was getting taken further away, you kind of have to use some judgement on that - especially if it was a young calf.

She'd have to be awfully darn good for me to keep her if she continues her "crazy" ways.   Like someone said earlier,  she'll probably just teach the rest of your cows her bad habits.  I've had cows like that myself and, in almost every case, I kept them longer than I should have and ended up with more expense and frustration than it was worth.   A couple of times I even had to get kicked(twice in about 30 seconds) or stop a pipe gate with my head(only seven stitches and two black eyes) before I convinced myself to send them down the road.   But then I'm an Iowegian---sometimes it takes us a little longer  to understand the obvious.   So, I have a new system---    

For those of you that think mathematically it goes like this-- 2XKick + 1deep cut + 7 stitches + 2 black eyes = 1 pi--ed off Iowegian and 1 cow gone

I also had a cow that calculated out like this--  1 kicked neighbor + 2 broken gates + 3 wrecked fences + 12 other cows joining her in the far end of the pasture when I'm in a hurry + 3 years feed & expense =  3 skinny, cat-butted, worthless calves + 1 pi--ed off Iowegian and 1 cow gone  

You'll probably notice the constant on the right side of the equation!!  

I pretty much have a mathematical formula in place for every one of my cows and depending on the multipication factor(number of times she's a b--ch) the equation may be completed fairly quickly.   If the multipication factor is relatively small or infrequent she may benefit from the Alzheimer's effect(the Iowegian may forget what a b--ch she was last time) which can lengthen the equation out somewhat.   Fortunately, most of our current cows haven't registered any real "numbers" or "multipication factors" for  quite a while now(it's called "effective culling").   I still have my equation handy though--just in case!!

Whatever you choose to do---good luck---but I'd suggest writing down the beginning of her equation now in case the Alzheimer effect strikes you!!  

in my experience "Stupid is hereditary"  Cows with this problem need to grow up and move away from home.

JMO ,but if she was pounding on the gate that you were just sitting on & no one had done anything personal to the cow, it's in her,and I would not make excuses for her behavior. If you have kids around all the more reason to move her. This is just MO also. It kind of threw up a red flag LN when you said that you were sitting on top of the gate/fence that you thought was the weak spot, not picking on you, but don't want anyone to get hurt, best to stay on your feet if possible. You can't move fast enough if/when something goes wrong if you're not on your feet. Just don't want anyone hurt badly. Had our oldest daughter get all of her front teeth knocked out when she was 10/12  years old.

Been there, done that!  We just hauled off 2 bred registered yrlg hfrs & a 10 mo old reg hfr to the sale barn.  Brought em in to winter pasture & they tried to jump 6 foot pipe fence in the pens.  Looked up their pedigrees & sure enough, their dams got shipped last year same reason.  Also have to admit I don't feel bad dumping them at the sale barn -- those folks get what they pay for around here.