Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Paging Sam Olson.

Praise God for polled cows.

Sam, you are MUCH more patient than I.
However, IME, the mere appearance of a gun seems to assure cooperation - for whatever reason.
Probably to deny me the pleasure!

Now, there is a hell of a difference in the life of a pampered milk cow and a range beef. But sometimes an old cow will surprise the hell out of you.

My Dad bought a Guernsey heifer when I was a year old. She had her first AI X Holstein calf when I was three. That old girl had a half Holstein heifer calf every fricken year until I was 21 years old. We had eighteen guernsey X holsteins in the herd just from that one cow and the entire rest of a 100 animal herd was descended from her daughters. Of course each one bred to a good AI Holstein. Some of them had less Guernsey blood than Ol' Pocahontas has Indian blood.

It's a shame Dad did not buy a lottery ticket the same day he bought that spotted Guernsey heifer.

This is as good a place as any to tell this story. Speaking of cows and guns.

Dad was twentyfive years old when he met my Mom in 1955 and they got married. He had an old 1934 coupe of some kind, twenty acres of bare ground he had just purchased, an old wooden walled cow trailer with a stanchion in the front (yes, all you old boys remember them from the fifties and sixties), a sleeping bag, and a yearling holstein bull as his only earthly possessions.

That holstein bull was nothing but a pet. Dad had taught him to pack, pull a cart, and he (the bull) was "high school educated".

Dad showed him at local rodeos at intermission and things like that as he grew to full size. A cowboy could lean back on the bull's face between his horns, and the critter would push the cowboy around on the rowels of his spurs like little castor wheels. The bull was saddle broke. Dad rode him jumping hurdles and rails.

When Mom and Dad got married, they hitched that old trailer to the back of the coupe, loaded the bull into the trailer, and a weeks worth of supplies into the back of the coupe. Then they disappeared into the Owyhee Desert Mountains for a week, using the yearling calf as a pack horse.

But back to the gun: Dad had trained the bull, by the time he was full grown, to roll out and flatten a rolled blanket in the middle of the rodeo arena. Of course all by hand signal. But for the audience there was a lot of hollering and shouting going on while it seemed the bull was being uncooperative.

Once the blanket was rolled out flat. Dad would take a bow and the bull would kneel for the audience.

Then Dad would tell the bull to roll up his bed and put it away. And, of course the critter would just look at Dad and shake his head as he was being told to do by secret hand signals.

After a bit of pleading, and some more hollering and shouting, Dad would threaten to shoot the bull. Still he just stood and shook his head. Until Dad stepped to the side and picked up his Remington model 14 in 30 Rem.

The bull would quickly roll up that blanket neat as could be. Time for another bow, and that was the finale of their act.

Yeah, if she is just nuts, well..........we all have experience dealing with crazy females.


If she is a killer.........it just aint worth it.


Especially for a 500-800 bucks.


That wont pay for the ambulance trip.

Pop is a lucky man.

Turn her loose on the rez. Let someone else have at her.

Boils down to - a cow is not worth the price of a decent hospital bill.

That’s a great story! Thanks for taking the time to tell it.

Dont you have a buncha injuns up that way?

A few years ago we bought some heifers off my dad's buddy. At one of our farms, we have to move the cows between pastures every week or so. The cattle love the fresh grass, so they usually run to the new field. However, Everytime we tried to move them this heifer would lift her head, take her calf plus 6-8 others to the back of the pasture.
It was decided we couldn't have this cow teaching everyone bad habits. Same deal, maniac level chithead in the corral, escaping etc. We barrowed a dart gun from a neighbor and walked it on the trailer like a drunk puppy.

We sent a group of old, big bodied cows who raised their last calf directly to Cargill. It was a before Christmas, they averaged just over $400. No animal is worth getting hurt over, but definitely not for that.

Let some trusted folks know that you have to put her down and donate the carcass to them. They'll show up with a little tow-behind trailer and haul her away to be butchered on their own place. And you'll forever be the good guy.