Rushing to feed is mainly just a bad habit that should not be tolerated since this keeps the cattle stressed and focusing on when someone is going to change paddocks instead of grazing right up to the moment you tell them to move.\u00a0 This also encourages the cow to forget about her calf.\u00a0 Most people can correct this behavior in three or four pasture moves.\u00a0 When\u00a0 the cattle come to the gate too fast, or come to the gate without their calf with them, leave the gate closed and drive them away.\u00a0 You don\u2019t have to take them very far, just until they relax, then go back to the gate and try again.\u00a0 The first time will probably take you a half hour or so, but by the third or fourth move when you change paddocks they will first go get their calf, then quietly walk through the gate and start grazing immediately instead of rushing to another part of the pasture. —- Eunice<\/p>\n
Can you explain “drive them away”?\u00a0 I’m thinking this is more of a side to side movement than a “driving cattle” as is conventionally understood? —- T.D.<\/em><\/p>\n Yes, move towards the cows in a zig-zag pattern. You must get closer each pass, even if it\u2019s only six inches or so.\u00a0 It does more harm than good to go back and forth in the same spot.\u00a0 It is important to watch the movement of the cattle you are influencing.\u00a0 As you walk to the right you will tend to turn the animal to the left.\u00a0 As soon as you see this happening you must turn back to straighten it out.\u00a0 Don\u2019t try to go from one side of the herd to the other, just work back and forth about 4 or 5 steps each way until you get some straight movement going away, then you can widen out the area you are working to feed other cattle to this movement.\u00a0 Moving back and forth puts a lot of pressure on animals to move away, but it is totally non-threatening so they are willing to turn their back to you to move off.\u00a0\u00a0 This is a pretty big subject to try to answer in an e-mail.\u00a0 The $125 Stockmanship DVD set we sell explains it very well with diagrams and video.<\/p>\n Bud often said if he had a choice of either teaching a person the mechanics of how he works livestock, or convince them that it could be done, they would be better off if they believed it could be done \u2013 they would be able to figure out a way to do it. —- Eunice<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Rushing to feed is mainly just a bad habit that should not be tolerated since this keeps the cattle stressed and focusing on when someone is going to change paddocks instead of grazing right up to the moment you tell them to move.\u00a0 This also encourages the cow to forget about her calf.\u00a0 Most people […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1831","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-stockmanship"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stockmanship.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1831","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stockmanship.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stockmanship.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stockmanship.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stockmanship.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1831"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/stockmanship.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1831\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1832,"href":"https:\/\/stockmanship.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1831\/revisions\/1832"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stockmanship.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1831"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stockmanship.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1831"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stockmanship.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1831"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}