Goofy Steer

[willow]

My son has a nice steer he plans on using at our county fair.  We put an ear tag in the steer when we got him and the steer kinda freaked out.  Every since the eartag issue he throws a fit if we get close to his head and neck and he seems especially jumpy anyway.  What can we do to help this big guy settle in a bit and get over what seems to be his jumpy nature?

 

[knabe]

scratch behind his poll.  if you can't do that, find out where the closest you can get and scratch there with a curry comb always staying away from the ear.  it probably just needs to heal.

 

[MKC Showcattle]

What I usually do when I have a calf around that is kinda jumpy, is just get it haltered up and comb it with a curry comb for a while. The steer will get more used to you! And maybe you'll find the calfs sweet spot and then he might start to think that its not so bad! That usually seems to work for me! Most of my calves sweet spots are around the tail head or on their back around that area. Just remember to be careful, just in case he's a kicker.

 

[dogger]

You might consider Sullivan's Peace Pellets.  We had a similar issue with our steer and they seemed to help.  It's a daily feed additivie.

 

[willow]

Thank you all for the advice.  We are doing everything stated above except the calf calm.  He will walk and tie out pretty well but then just jumps out of his skin at random times and then especially when we approach his head when he is tied...he thinks he is going to get another ear tag.  I think we are definitely going to do some calf calm or something when we go to weigh in/tag in here in another month.  Wish us luck!