Taming a calf that fears/hates its owners

We sold a calf this spring to a guy and long story short, the calf is now afraid of him and his fight instinct has kicked in when he’s around.  It’s spilled over into the way the calf is around his daughter as well.

He called me on Sunday and said they’re probably going to have to send him to the auction barn.  Knowing the general situation I asked him to let me go check the calf out this week and see what advice I could give first.  We went out there this afternoon (the calf's owner was not around) and I was able to walk up to him, grab the halter, and lead him around their outer pen twice.  Thinking that it might have just been me that he was okay with, I turned the lead to my 68 year old father who hasn’t held a halter in 15 years, when we were kids.  The calf walked just fine and setup for him with a show stick.  There’s nothing wrong with the calf other than he’s gotten the impression his owners are predators in the biological predator/prey sense.

I’ve always been of the opinion that if you beat a calf and it starts trying to fight you, tough crap, you get what you deserve.

Is there any advice to give once a calf has decided that it can’t trust its owner?

Get it away from them for a while and give it a chance to forget them, then start over.  Might not work, but thats probably the best chance.  Of course you have to find somewhre/someone else to do it.

I'd tie the steer up and have them wave a hat or small red flag as far back as to not to spook the steer. Then walk up to the steer brush him a few strokes and offer kind words. Slowly decrease the distance and still while at a safe distance actually swing the hat toward the steer. Again, after a few swings that the steer tolerates move up and brush/pet and offer kind words. Do this until you can stand next to the steer and swing without the steer even paying any attention to you (or them). IT may take one or two afternoons or one or two weeks. It all depends on how much damage has been done. Its a broken trust issue and maybe the dad will never fully get the steers trust back but I bet the child can. Since he is having a little bit of an issue with the child now I would make sure that she is the one feeding the steer and spending as much time with him as possible. Oh, and have a little talk with Papa bear  

While I support the notion that this calf has somehow lost trust in his owners--and maybe the owners did or didn't do something that directly prompted the distrust--here's the situation as it stands now...

The calf has an attitude, and it sounds like the situation may be bad enough that the owners are not taking action any time too soon. Like any other relationship, things take a lot longer to build than they take to tear down. To translate, this will require time, patience & willingness on the part of the owner. If the owners DID do something to trigger this reaction or behavior of the calf, it's hard to imagine them having the patience & willingness that will be required. If they're talking about taking him to the stock barn, it sounds like they're ready to give up on him.

Secondly, this calf probably has a bluff on this kid, and he could be dangerous given the right (or wrong) circumstances. Is it worth somebody getting hurt or seriously injured. Whether or not he's dangerous or mean or just skiddish, if the owners are afraid of him, he senses that, and in order for them to have any success, they'll have to get past that fear. None of us trust anything or anybody who doesn't trust us back.

Is there a chance you can buy the calf back and place him again? Is he good enough to warrant the effort? How committed are you to help resolve the situation as the breeder? Do you have a similar calf that you could offer as a replacement?

The right thing to do and the easy thing to do are not usually the same solution. I would say to consider yourself partners and try to help find
a solution that preserves your relationship with the customer.

leanbeef, thanks for the detailed reply but I'm a bit more interested in people who have experience with such situations rather than customer relationship advice.  Please don't take that the wrong way, I just don't feel comfortable talking about real people as generic 'customers' with strangers.  When I say something online I prefer for it to be something I wouldn't be ashamed with the person I say it about seeing it.

I didn't go into detail about what happened early on with the calf out of respect for the folks involved but you can read into the long story short part.  I've spoke with them about it and why certain agressive methods of breaking a calf just don't work and can make things worse.

It's also Texas, you can't swap calves out after June.

Well Jeff.....thats true for majors....but a lot of the county shows dont validate till Oct. There could be a chance to place him elsewhere. That being said I have steers for both county and majors for my kids.....and I have one that I think is gonna cripple....so there may be others like us that would be looking for a good steer late in the game. How good is he?????

Jeff_Schroeder said:

leanbeef, thanks for the detailed reply but I'm a bit more interested in people who have experience with such situations rather than customer relationship advice.  Please don't take that the wrong way, I just don't feel comfortable talking about real people as generic 'customers' with strangers.  When I say something online I prefer for it to be something I wouldn't be ashamed with the person I say it about seeing it.

I didn't go into detail about what happened early on with the calf out of respect for the folks involved but you can read into the long story short part.  I've spoke with them about it and why certain agressive methods of breaking a calf just don't work and can make things worse.

It's also Texas, you can't swap calves out after June.

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Actually, I do have some experience with such situations. Personally, I think your best shot at making the best of the situation lies more in how you proceed with respect to your relationship with the owners of the calf and less in trying to repair the relationship between the owners and the calf. You obviously know more about your particular circumstances than any of us do, so good luck with whatever direction you take.

Assuming they keep the calf at home, do they have access to a school barn they could use for an environment change. 

Dad probably needs to accept calf doesnt like him and stay away.  Anyone else in family able to help her?

i've dealt with quite a few mean calves.  the thing that worked for me was to have them loose and have the owner see exactly what behavior by the human triggers the behavior, repeat a couple times to verify, then back off as this is their circle of tolerance.  they need to be within the bubble of awareness and the bubble of tolerance and allow the calf to shrink the bubble of tolerance, usually through reward.  the situation must be totally diffused and the reinitiating process will now take many more steps to build trust.  people underestimate gaining the trust from both eyes.  does the person wear a hat that identifies themselves, use a certain tone etc.  there are a few sweet spots to pet that cattle love.  one is behind the poll,  just to the side of the tail head.  there's others but this person probably can't get close enough to do that.  everything should be on a loose halter so one can gauge the behavior easier.  the yanking and pulling only serves to antagonize and reinforce the bad relationship.  another thing i've done with cattle and horses is move my hands in the air in different areas slowly to see if an animal has been hit.  i don't tell the person i know they've been hit, only how to visualize what makes the animal nervous.  another thing that makes the animal think rather than react is to move around them and force them to change eyes on you.  you can do this low to the ground as predators land on cattle's back which if they were hit they might be thinking something is going on.  bottom line you need to train the human and not the calf.  as ray hunt used to say people don't have horse problems, horses have people problems.  if you can fix this one word will get around you are a whisperer and the people won't even know how you helped them (or at least admit it once they figure it out)

Thanks for the input guys.  The ideas from Chambero and JMRCattleCo were both things I hadn't thought of.

While the calf in question is an exotic, we run primarily american cows.  Trust me when I say we've sold spooky calves before and know how to deal with them.  This is a different situation than the generic stupid calf.

Sounds like the calf doesn't trust the owners and the owners are scared of him. Doesn't sound like the calf's disposition is the problem. I second what chambero said. Get the calf a new environment and hopefully he (and maybe the current owners) will forget and they can both start over. I've got 2 boy in HS now, but when they were smaller calves would try things with them they never would with me. As their size and confidence has grown, we don't have these issues any more. Calves can surely sense tension in the handler-child or adult-and normally flight instinct takes over even in the gentlest of calves.  I'm not a huge believer in some of the horse whisperer stuff talked about on this board, but I do agree that corporal punishment rarely works on show cattle. Sounds like the best way to set both the calf and child up for success is to reprogram them both by separating them for while. 

I commend you for wanting to help them (and the calf) out after the sale.  (clapping)

The horse whisperer stuff works because the problem is the human.

You don't whisper to the horse you whisper to the human.

Animals are better listeners than humans.

knabe said:

The horse whisperer stuff works because the problem is the human.

You don't whisper to the horse you whisper to the human.

Animals are better listeners than humans.

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Point taken and I agree. The same might be said for the beneficial result of the accurate placement of a sorting stick to the backside of said human???  (lol)

Jeff

I don't claim to have all of the answers, but I was on the customer end of the same thing when I was a kid.  Like you, I could always handle the stupid calf situation.  The guy that I bought the heifer from got along just fine with her.  Honestly, EVERYONE but me got along fine with her......which always bothered me because I was the one feeding her!

Anyway, the guy that I bought her from came over and picked her up.  Took her home for about a week, and kept her tied up and under fans just like I was doing with her.  I started going to his place and spending time with her and the producer.  In about 2 weeks I took her back home and everything went fine.  I don't know what happened with her, or why it happened.  Long story short, that is what fixed the problem. 

That little trick elevated her to "stupid calf" status, but I did get her into the showring including showmanship. 

I don't know how far you live from the owner, or if anything like this would even work in this situation.  Might be worth a try. 

Jeff a change in enviroment is a good idea and if it were me I would tell them to take a step back and start from square one. Square one for me is gaining the calfs trust then introducing the stick then halter then leading then new enviroments and so on. Sounds like the calf knows everything but the trust part. O would set in a pen with him and be with him for however long it tales till he let's me halter him with no assisstance hope that helps.

Anybody that thinks cattle are stupid couldn't be more wrong.  As we all know, they all have personalities and some of them just decide they don't like certain humans.  A couple of somewhat humorous examples

- My son's steer that won at the Belt Buckle really doesn't like me much and it just kills me.  The ONLY thing I did to him was haul him to the vet and leave him to get dehorned.  I wasn't even there when the vet did it.  I picked him up and brought him home.  And he's stayed pissed off at me for it. As you can imagine, he gets babied by my wife and boys.  He loves them, but only grudgingly puts up with me.

- A long time ago, my kid sister bought a heifer to show that was probably 8-9 months old when we got her, a little older than typical.  She was already broken and in a barn with two other heifers.  I remember her being unusually hard to put on the trailer.  We got her home and you could tell she never was happy - all year.   Just kind of depressed acting.  We couldn't get her bred for anything.  We talked to the breeder about her and he asked for her back.  He took her home - back with her buddies who were still there - and she bred right off the bat.  She went on to a long and successful life as a cow.  She just missed home I think.

Something to try that has worked for us: put them in a pen where there is no free choice food or water. Do not tie them up. Bring them food in a feed pan. Stand back about 4 feet and wait there for ten minutes. If they start eating let them finish if not take it away and they don't get to eat. Bring them a bucket of water and do the same thing. If they don't drink take the bucket. Do this twice a day for feed and three times a day for water (more if it's hot).

What we have found is that they will learn (or relearn) that they need to depend on you and will then begin to trust you as well.

This worked on one of my sons steers that just hated any human. After that he would wait by the gate for the school bus to drop him off. Then one day he figured out that if he would push hard enough the gate would pop of the hinge, he wondered up to the house and would wait for him to show up to care for him.

Moral: A little hunger and thirst can be a great motivator.

SD
<alien>

SD said:

Moral: A little hunger and thirst can be a great motivator.

SD
<alien>

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works at the workplace too.  amazing.

I dont know any sure fire ways.  But from the sound of it, I would say it sounds like you are saying the calf has gone beyond distrest to downright fear of certain individuals.  Unfortunately, a lot of animals never get over that, and if the steer has learned to associate the daughter with daddy, he may already fear her by association.  I would say from my experiences that the chances of the dad ever getting back in that steer's good graces are slim to none, animals dont forgive those that they fear very easily.  I would say that I think the calf has to be taken out of that situation, someone else is going to have to really gain that steers trust, and then slowly introduce the little girl back into the situation with the person that the calf trusts.  Maybe then the calf will learn to trust the little girl.  Not trying to be rude, but I think the dad should just hang up his hopes of dealing with that calf, especially if the calf is fearful of him.  Once they truly fear someone you are dealling with a whole new ballgame.

From some one who has had his share od idiots,  calved a lot of heifers, and nothing any dumber,  get scared and never get over it, gave them enough sedative to completely put them out, after a good nap and vicks salve on the nose to fool the odor, mine not hers, they usually wake up with a new outlook,
Used it on heifers than would run you out of the trap, with great results.