G- Halter breaking MM's way (Picture Heavy)

[milkmaid]

I'm on Christmas break at the moment and have time on my hands, so I figured I'd put together a collection of pictures on halter breaking, since I've got several calves I'm working with right now.

There's a lot of ways to halter break... some folks use tractors or donkeys, others tie long-term and then lead to feed and water, some prefer not to tie a calf until they're already leading... I start by tying and lead the calf when they've learned how to stand tied. I don't generally use it for real young calves since there's no point to it (they don't generally understand), but I'll use it frequently for older calves and I've broken several older (4-5 y/o) cows using this method.

First I need to comment that tame and halter broke are two different things. I halter break first and tame them later. I haven't found the opposite approach to work as well. I find it's easiest to have my animals a little wild when I start (ie large flight zone)... the more they fight initially the better they tend to learn they cannot get away and the better they tend to lead later. I also prefer to break between 6 months and a year; they tend to be able and willing to think at that point, and they're not too big yet either. I usually work with Holsteins and working with 1400lbs+ of mature cow isn't always fun or easy.

In this post I'm dealing with halter breaking the wild animals; I break some of my own rules when I'm working with tame cattle. For instance, I picked up a calf the other day that's tame but not fully halterbroke; I put a halter on her in the trailer and led her straight to her pen and she was great. So sometimes I'll skip some of what I'm recommending in this post, but then I've broken a lot of calves too and I usually have a good idea of what I can get away with.

When halter breaking, the most important thing is to be quiet and relaxed.

So, first step: get rope on calf.



I use a lasso/lariat because it's stiff, strong, and works best. This 6 month old calf took off bucking and bawling as soon as I swung the rope over his head and I let him go. He's approx 680lbs and there was no way I could hold him; best not to even try because it'd teach him bad habits. He came back around about 5 minutes later as I was putting out hay for the rest of the herd and I was able to get a hold of the end of the rope.

Step two: get them attached to a good solid post.



I took a few wraps around the post for leverage and got him tight enough I could approach and get a halter on. (Note that if you're working with a psycotic animal or mature cow - ie I've worked with a wild 1800lb cow - then it may be best to be on the opposite side of the fence when getting the halter on so you're out of harm's way. A mad cow on a rope with a solid fence beside you can get dangerous fast.)

Note that these two steps can also be accomplished by running a cow into a chute and haltering him/her there if you have access to a chute.

Step 3: Halter and tie calf to a post.



And he'll sit there until he figures out how to stand tied with slack in the rope.



His flight zone is still the same size and he doesn't like me close, but he's learning how to release the pressure - he has to step forward. This is the basics of leading, and I let the post teach him this.

This 6 month old heifer calf is still learning.


Notice her body language - rope is tight, attitude says clearly that she doesn't understand why she's restrained but given the chance she wants to leave the area pronto. I left her tied for 3 hours and then led her down the road to another pen for weaning, and she led great.

I'll comment here that I've found heifers in standing heat tend to be extremely mellow. I remember 2 yearling heifers that I'd never haltered before came into standing heat one weekend evening when I couldn't get in touch with my AI tech. I roped, snubbed, haltered and tied both for 30 minutes, then led them (without incident) 1/4 mile down the road to visit the neighbor's bull.



The bull calf above stayed tied for 2-3 hours every afternoon for 3 days. He was ready to lead earlier but the weather was too nasty to spend time leading him. When I did start leading him, we went 1/4 mile down to road to visit the dairy the first day, and he behaved great.

On animals I have trouble catching I'll sometimes leave halter/rope on them. It's not preferable since they could get it caught on something, but sometimes it's necessary.



Something I can't get in pictures is how the calf reacts tied to the post - when they get to the point that when you approach and they lunge back, hit the end of the rope, and then step forward and watch you warily - that's when they're ready to lead. If they're constantly pulling back and don't seem to understand how to release pressure - they're not ready to be led anywhere yet because they'll do the same thing when you're on the other end of the rope as when the post is on the other end of the rope.

Above all - when beginning to lead - never start until the animal has clearly learned they cannot get away from the post. (You can see them hit the end of the rope and give up - that's when all's good.) I made that mistake once and only once. Ended up with a 1400lb cow that learned I couldn't hold her and she'd randomly and deliberately bolt - usually in front of an audience. She turned into a tame cow that I hand-milked all summer one year, but I always had to be careful when leading her because I never knew when she'd take off.

Step four: leading.



I usually prefer to start leading in a small pen so just incase they try running off I can still hold them... but right now my pen has 4' drifts in it so I'm just leading the calves onto the road and going for a walk.

Sometimes I lead facing the calf (usually initially), sometimes I lead facing away from the calf. Generally I'll face him until we get started, then as he gets some momentum I'll turn away and just walk. When I begin leading a calf it takes a little bit for them to figure out how to lead. Take a step, put pressure on the rope, calf pulls, then lunges forward. Any forward movement is rewarded by loosening of the rope - remember that's what they learned standing tied to the post.

Sometimes you can stand off to their 45 or 90-degree and apply pressure to the rope to get them off balance if they are being stubborn. Usually once you can get them to step a few times and free up their feet they'll lead alright; if they continue being stubborn they may need to go back to standing at the post.

I've also occasionally stepped behind the driving line at the shoulders and used a rope or whip on their rump to get them moving; sometimes calves will freeze up and not be able to figure out how to move. Have to "unfreeze" them. Still, using a rope or whip even lightly on an unbroken, wild animal can turn into a mess in a hurry so I rarely do it. When it's done the goal is only to quietly show them how to move and that it's okay to move - not to scare them.



Notice that when I begin leading and working with him I give them plenty of slack. There's two reasons. First, this calf still has a huge flight zone and while he can cope with me 3' away, he wouldn't be okay with my hand next to his halter. Second, when he pulls back and refuses to move for a moment, he'll very likely lunge forward when he does move, and I don't want him landing on me. Both of us are happier when there's plenty of rope between us.

Another thing I do is that I don't touch him while leading. (Tied to the post is another story.) Occasionally when we're stopped I'll reach up and pet or scratch him since I'm working a bit on taming him down while I'm halter breaking, but for the most part I don't touch him at all. On the heifer in the picture up the page, had I touched her she would have freaked and bolted. She led great as long as we both had our defined spheres and I didn't infringe on hers' too much. Just have to know the limits of the animal you're working with.

Over time I will get closer and begin to demand more precision and better manners from the calf, but for now that 3' of space is perfectly acceptable. Think of it as setting initial boundaries and gradually bringing them in until there's a narrow path he has to walk, no pun intended.

Eventually I could ask a lot of the animal - head up, walking at a precise pace, stopping with his feet in a specific location, etc - like for showing:



...But that comes with time.

There's a few other tricks of the trade I like to implement when halter breaking - main one is staking them out.





It's similar to tying them to a post like I was doing with the calf in the first pictures - they learn their lessons without me being present. (And when they know how to lead, it's a great way of utilizing available grass!)

I generally find that breaking them to lead doesn't take more than a few days (but up to a few weeks on older animals), and then perfection comes as you spend time with them. When I spent several weeks this past spring staking out a 2y/o cow all day every day; caught her in the morning, led her to grass, led her back to her pen in the evening... she made remarkable progress. Once they figure out how to lead the best thing is just to keep up with it until they're conditioned to lead correctly and quietly; after that I can turn a cow out for a year or more and she'll still remember how to lead when I decide to work with her again.

That's the basic gist of how I do things.

[AnnB (NE)]

I've used several different methods of halter breaking/lead training but always come back to this basic method. A little tweak here and there for specific animals, or for different pens, but still the same basic method.

The main thing they have to learn is that the rope/lead is stronger than they are, and they have a much harder time learning that with a puny human on the end. Although, I did get pretty good at sprinting alongside a bolting bovine until I had a good amount of slack in the rope, looping it round my butt, then sitting down against it so that they hit the end pretty hard. I've flipped a few 500 lb calves (and Fancy) that way in a plowed field and it's amazing how much respect for the rope they gain, especially when they have trouble getting their feet under them in that loose plowed soil. They're convinced that that rope really "reached out and touched" them!
But that's a method I sure wouldn't recommend if there's a stout post to tie them to! Very jarring on the knees, and not that great on the shoulders either (mine, not the cow's! LOL).
The stout post was one of the first things we put in on this place! LOL

After I have them respecting the rope and leading, I tie them and use that time to get them used to being handled, get them over their aversion to being touched. I rub them all over with a sorting stick first, and when they accept that move on to a leather quirt, then when they accept that, they're usually ready to have hands all over them.

Ann B

[aspengrove]

You've definitely spent some time putting this together. Good job.
Our calves are never untame. We raise them on the bottle and they are very much pets by the time they are weaned. We start tying them in the barn when they are three to four months old, and by the second or third day most of them are leading some. After a 2 week training period of being tied in the barn and lead, we turn them back out. Almost always the calves remember the lessons when they are tied or led later.

[milkmaid]

Aspen - yep, mine might be like that too if I raised them on a bottle. Since I went to nurse cows a few years ago I raise very few calves on a bottle unless necessary. The calves I have get wild pretty quickly when they run with their mothers like beef cattle and I'm not home 9 months of the year.

Another thing I neglected to mention initially and thought of later - note where the rope is tied and how much rope I give them when tied to the post. Not enough to get caught in, but enough to keep them safe. Very rarely will I untie a calf that's fighting the post; I try to give them enough slack they can be tied for hours if needed and fight all they want - including falling down - without hurting themselves. If they're tied too short they're at risk of breaking their neck and can't get back up if they fall.

Also, after they figure out how to stand tied, some smart calves like to lay down next to the post and chew their cud. I try to give them enough slack to do that.

[blaire]

How did you go about this with Roxy since she was "tame" but not halter broke? Or did you? Has she settled in to the herd?
Blaire

[milkmaid]

Blaire -- she's settling in nicely; I keep meaning to get a pic of her with her buddies. You'd think with all the time I spend with the camera I would have one by now. (Need a little embarrassed emoticon here!)

I have been leading Roxy but I modified my program a little for her -- for starters, I had snowdrifts too high to dare drive the trailer anywhere near the pens when I came home. So I parked on the road, walked in the trailer and haltered her, then just led her right out and the 100 yards to the pens. (So no time tied to a post.) She was great. I did have her tied for an hour Friday and then haltered her yesterday and led her down to the dairy to show her off to my boss. ;D

I don't worry so much about tame calves running off with me (the reason I tie wild calves to the post until they learn to respect the rope) but I do find that all calves lead better when they've spent time at the post and learned the rope controls what they do and that pressure is released by moving forward.

[buxombeefcowdairy]

Thank you for a great post, Milkmaid.

I want to add that for a very BIG animal (such as a 1500+ cow, or a bull that's more than a yearling), or an animal that is REALLY flighty, I would not start by tying to a post. The bigger animals can more easily break their own neck, or their legs, if they panic, whereas a calf or smaller cow is less likely to do that. Some of the really flighty ones (think Dostthouhavemilk's stray bull and his offspring) may get so panicked that they hurt themselves before they figure out to 'give' to the post.

For these circumstances, I will put a halter on, leaving a rope to drag.
For a flighty animal, this teaches them not to panic from the halter and rope, in a less frightening way. After a day or two, when you can see them non-chalantly turning their head when they step on their rope, they are ready to tie to the post.
They will still have a big fit when they are first tied up, but it won't be as dangerous as if you tied them fast right away.

Essentially, this is simply breaking the learning steps into smaller chunks.

Temple Grandin recommends the first halter/drag rope, then tie, for animals that are more wild-tempered.

I would have to qualify all of this, though, with the thought that an animal with such a strong panic response is NOT appropriate family-cow material.

[AnnB (NE)]

When I have one that wants to "out walk" me, we turn a lot of circles. She gets a couple of steps ahead and I stop and make her circle around me. The first few times it may seem like it takes forever to get to where you're going, but they quickly figure out that walking slower gets them there faster.

Ann B

[woodburngirl3]

Well I certainly enjoyed the work MM you took to get this to our eyes. I love the pictures and the discriptions. So easy to understand. We'll be having our first calves on our farm starting in March so this was perfectly timed. Thank you!

Gwen in Iowa

[missevelyn]

I twirl the extra lead rope in front of me, propeller fashion. Most animals don't want to stick their noses into that moving rope. If they don't get that hint then I move to the circling routine.

Regina

[milkmaid]

As to the cow out-walking you... that's something I won't put up with since it's dangerous. If I have a cow that wants to do that I use a halter with a chain under the jaw and carry a short riding crop. The easiest way to deal with the cow out-walking you is to start by enforcing your personal bubble, since most of the time when a cow is taking you for a walk she's bumping into you and nearly stepping on your feet. That's an invasion of personal privacy, LOL, and not acceptable from a cow that weighs 10x my weight. My 311 is over 1600lbs; too big for me to allow any nonsense, especially not in close quarters. Shucks, her head alone is half my size - note my avatar.

Start at a standstill with the cow on your right, both of you facing forward. Draw an imaginary 2 foot bubble around you -- cow has to stay out of that. Now turn 180 degrees so you're facing her, and then walk toward her. You're asking her to back up. A light bump on the chain will enforce this once she gets the point, but generally the riding crop will be needed the first couple times. A swat on nose or chest will make the "back up" concept clear. Make her retreat a step or two, then stop, let her think about it for a moment - taking the pressure off her - and then repeat.

The other way I use to teach cows to respect my space is something I picked up from a horse friend that did some Parelli work. I think most horse/livestock owners do this to some extent, but the Parelli concept was the first time I'd really thought about it. Start like before, cow on your right and both of you facing forward. Now turn 90 degrees toward her and take a step towards the cow's shoulder so that your bubble is infringing on her space. If she doesn't move immediately, enforce the concept with a smack on the shoulder from the riding crop. (The horse folks just use a light finger - pressure - but I get a better response on cows with the crop.) The goal here is to be able to walk toward her and have her move away from you, hind legs in relatively the same spot while front legs move - so she goes in a circle. Use the chain on the halter as necessary to keep her from moving too far forward; sometimes it takes a minute to get the concept across. You'd be surprised how fast a cow can learn to respect your bubble in just 5 minutes with those two methods.

For anyone with their eyebrows raised, I assure you my nurse cows (the only ones I routinely work with) are tame, quiet and trust me. They also have better ground manners than most horses and I routinely load them in trailers like horses. My vet finds it amusing when I'm at the clinic loading up cows, and I hand him a couple lead ropes and ask him to hold some of the cows while I'm tying the others up front in the trailer. My cows are well mannered, watch their feet and their space.

One last comment -- on turning cows. Unless I'm leading more than one animal at once, I always lead with the cow on my right side. When I have to make a turn, especially a tight turn, 99.9% of the time I always make the turn by going turning into the cow and making her move away from me. Unless I have a very well broke cow and/or one that respects my space very, very well, I never allow a cow to turn around me. (Do I need pictures of this?) It goes back to the bubble concept; by turning into the cow I am re-enforcing the fact that I'm the boss and she has to move out of my space. If I allow her to turn into/around me, then I'm inadvertently teaching her bad habits by letting her bubble infringe on mine and make me move. Try leading a cow on a straight line and then make a 180 degree turn - try it both ways - you'll see what I'm talking about.

[Maryann]

Ok!! sounds like I have some work to do! Just one more question...if there is the bubble thing around you, how do you get close enough to her in the field or corral to get the halter around her in the first place? My girl lets me get really close and and then when I reach within a foot she turns her head and walks away two steps. I am going to put a collar on her which I could reach out and hold in order to put a real halter on her but I was hoping that eventually all I'd need was the collar and no halter?...

I'm also hoping that eventually she'll let me walk up to her in the field, squat down in the clean grass and milk her straight into the bucket and I guess everyone needs their dreams right??!!

Thanks sooooo much for all the great advice!!

Maryann

[outbackfarm]

Thank you for all this great info. I have a 6 month old heifer I have had since she was just a few hours old. She is very friendly, a little too much sometimes. When I go in to feed her and the steer she sort of butts with her huge head and is getting rather rambuctious. I have to carry a switch in with me now. She's about waste high to me now and probably 400-450 lbs.

So is she a good age to start halter breaking? I would eventually like to try to milk her and need to start working more with her.

Thanks, Kris

[Janene]

Kris-The sooner the better...its easier on you when they aren't so big.
Give it a try....let us know how it goes!
Janene

[milkmaid]

Maryann -- there's a difference between "hey I'm coming over to pet you or halter you" and "get out of my way." Granted the cow should respect your space all the time (ie she'd better not walk inside my space), but if you don't tell her to move she doesn't necessarily have to go. Watch a herd of cows or horses sometime; the dominant animal can eat next to subordinates, stand next to them, etc and all is good - but - when the boss animal decides s/he wants to be near a pile of hay or get a drink of water or anything else, everyone else has to move, now.

With your cow it sounds mostly like she's just avoiding being caught. She likes her freedom and she's figured out how to keep it just a few moments longer.