Training my calf

[Kathy Millar]

I am in the process of halter training my 6 month old heifer and have come across a behaviour problem. To reward her, I give her alfalfa cubes and now that she associates me with treats, she gets very pushy and a bit agressive. In order to stop her shoving me around, where should I slap her? I don't want to make her head shy but often that is the closest part of her at the time of the shove.

Also, I am training her to pickup her feet. She is good with the front but can't make any headway with the back. I am afraid that she may learn to yank her foot out of the way as soon as I touch it and I don't want that as I want to be able to milk her some day. She is very good otherwise with touching and leads quite well and ties. I can even walk up to her most of the time and put her halter on.

Kathy

PS I am training her to pick her feet up so that they can be trimmed. We do not have the luxury of a foot trimmer around her and I'm afraid that we must rely on rough ground to trim down the feet. Or else have the vet tranquilize them and he doesn't want the job.

[Elizabeth]

Hi Kathy: I think that you have to stop rewarding her with treats. I did that once from my hand with goats and they got so aggressive that they would knock me over looking for treats. I reward my heifer with her meal of grain in her baler while I brush her, after her daily leading session. She enjoys being groomed and loves her grain, so I figure that is enough incentive, also she likes to be worked. The feet are an issue here too. We also have to tranquilize and vet trim our girls. I wanted to train my young one to have her feet picked up but was told by another farmer that it was a really hard thing to do .... both for the cow to learn and also for us to trim them standing up. I don't know if that was only his experience but he seemed preety adament. When we trained the older cows, who were pretty much ferral, to milk, and still now when I put the machine on, it is crouched in real close with an arm and shoulder aginst their back legs to protect from them raising one to kick. A little hard to explain, but when you are hunkered in close they can't pick up momentum and it is easy to use your arm and shoulder to hobble down the leg. They soon got the idea not to raise it in the milking bale with us under! Having said that they all resist having their back legs picked up or restrained. Let me know how it goes. Liz

[evolen]

have a look at:
"Topic: Halter training - again!" a little bit more down...

[Kathy Millar]

Apparently my horse-training neighbour has trained her heifer to pick up her feet and also has trimmed the front feet of an older heifer while the animal was standing. So I guess I will be satisfied with the front only.

Kathy

[Duncan MacIntyre]

Some years ago I spent quite a lot of time lifting feet of calves and generally found I could do things to their feet up till 18 months or so, then it became more difficultas they became adults. Front feet are not too difficult and in days when both beef and dairy cows were tied in byres for the winter I have trimmed or pared lame front feet many many times simply by holding the foot up myself. Hinds are a differnt story

I am afraid I do not believe in rewarding cattle or horses with titbits, as others have said it tends to make them expect it and be dangerous in some cases if you do not have the expected titbit on hand. As I have said before I use quiet persistence when halter training and try to start while they are small enough not to be able to argue too much, But neither reward them nor punish them.

Duncan