Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Calf Table

Too bad that we cant find help anymore.....young help anyway.

But this works pretty well.

growing food, raising food, is just too much work for most of today's snowflakes. About 2 million farms grow and produce most of the food in the US.

Dang, y'all have that down pretty good.

You got that many hands, you could be ropin', draggin', and flankin'...

I've never said who I work for on a forum and never will for various reasons. Probably paranoia on my part, and it wouldn't take much sleuthing to figure out who, but anyway.

The outfit I work for is one of many companies that offer Calf Tables. Most major Cattle Handling Equipment Brands offer them (W-W, Priefert, Powder River, For-Most, Filson). I've never understood why they're not more popular than they are. If you're working larger calves (say over 250lbs), a regular Squeeze Chute will usually do. But anything smaller, and regular sized headgates start having a tough time holding the head, especially smaller headed breeds (think brahma). Calf tables will have downsized headgates, and grant more animal access for branding, castration, etc. Calves also sort of "give up" once you lay them on their side.

Cows will work pretty easy. Even in a wood alley with a head gate. But calves are usually what beats you to death. An adjustable or dedicated calf crowd alley and a calf table saves a lot of time, money, and trouble in the long term. Calf tables and calf alleys are easy to find and show up every day (unlike hired help).

The best 200 pair cattle handling facility you can buy wouldn't cover a week in the hospital. I've been plenty beat up working cattle and know a lot of folks that have been messed up for life doing it. That said, I can't understand why some folks gripe about millennials being unwilling to come out and get hurt in sub-standard (non existent) cattle handling facilities for $10.00 and hour anymore. I don't see too many Baby Boomers jumping up and down for those job prospects either........

I get that some folks think that doing it all by hand is "fun"(and it is, till it ain't) and it's part of a lifestyle. In some parts of the country, the range is still big enough that the only way to really effectively manage cattle is still on horseback (there's even a few places back east like that), but for everyone else, buy good, quality, cattle handling equipment. I've had plenty of folks cry while they wrote the check, but NONE regretted it after the fact.

Except for the guy that has to push those little [bleep] up the alley. We had a pair of catcher's shin guards for whomever drew that straw when we worked a group across a table.

Nice brand, by the way Jim.

Just putting a new headgate on my new working pens chute today.

That's a job in itself. Good thing I had the tractor to set the gate.

Couple reasons. If you have a big bunch of cattle, it is pretty dang handy to get them all worked in a day. If you are neighboring, you only need to borrow help for that one day and you're done.

Nostalgia definitely comes to play.

Pretty sure it would be dang hard to work 1,000 calves across a table in one day, especially if you are cutting calves. Done that at a regular branding and it was a piece of cake. A great community builder to boot.

Lol, you should post that on some social justice warrior site and watch the melt down.

Wife and I have to run a group of calves across the table this weekend and cut them. It is a bit slow with just the 2 of us and the kids helping a little bit. Makes me consider banding them instead.

That's what I'm doing this year.

It's just way too easy to band and work them when they are small. Easier on the calf too.

We never liked the calf table because it was just too much fun getting the kids into the coral, and watching them rassel calves.

Branding was always a family event, involving three generations, right down to the five year olds. But we worked the calves before they hit six weeks. The cows go down the alley and through the squeeze chute. And the men handle that chore.

I get the whole Nostalgia and Lifestyle thing. I've not owned a cow since '98 and Dad sold the last of his in 2012. A big part of my staying with my job is out of a desire to stay in the industry, and I find the equipment side the most interesting.

It'd take a shade over eight hours at 30 seconds a calf to work 1,000 calves, so I'd say it'd depend on the crew as much as anything. But, we did just introduce a hydraulic calf table !

30 seconds per calf including cutting calves is a bit of a stretch. I can tell you as someone who works more cattle than most anyone outside of a feedlot, getting that many cattle worked is far more about how quickly you can get the animal in and out of the chute. And to think you can run calves up an alley continuously all day long and maintain that pace is a huge stretch.

Did that couple times a year as a kid in Ks on the farm, and still go back and help brother some years. Ours were always bigger in size and we did not have a squeeze chute that tilted to the side. Man that branding smoke stinks.

We can do a heifer in about a minute, sometimes a little less. My bander was saying that a Johnson calf table allows you to band and brand at the same time, where as this For Most you should wait.

Still, less than a minute and a half to run a bull calf through.

This was the first year we ran them all through in one day, usually its just the wife and I doing about 70 at different times. Usually had bunches or 100 or so out on grass but this year we are going to run them all together. Intensive style on tame, native and cover crops.


A tub of some sort would be nice for this job!


Yeah, its a dang nice brand.....and I kinda lucked into it. My Great Uncle on dad's side had the same initials as me, J C. When I turned 18 my Dad's cousin gave me the brand.

Its a C lazy J on the left rib. Goes on nice and fast and does not blotch like a B or an A can.


We started banding a few years ago, mainly because the kid I had trained up to cut moved to North Dakota. He sure was good. Nice clean job and fast.

No body wanted to cut and no body wanted to brand, so we band now and I brand.

This year they were right at the limit of the little green rings....I cut one that was way too big. We gave a tetanus shot to the big ones. Dont know if its necessary but some folks say it helps when you band a big one.

I thought it was maybe a C and a quarter circle. But a CJ is just as nice and clean. Love those type of brands, clean, simple and no blotch. Word=ked for an outfit that was S quarter circle, same thing. Also done a lot of branding with brands that are very easy to blotch. really want someone who knows how to brand when you're running an X or an N or a W etc.

Ours is a Rafter L. Pretty good but not as nice as a CJ.

I have always been of the opinion that if you band calves, you need to give a 7-way.

When


When I was a teenager I would have worked for the experience alone, but no one wanted someone inexperienced. Adds in the paper stayed there for along time from people who stipulated experience only. Some even said will not teach or something to that effect. If you want help it may be necessary to teach youngsters or older and maybe you do.

We give everything a 7 or an 8 way, I dont remember, big bull calves get a tetanus as well.

Maybe thats over doing it? Was recommended by a couple of local vets.