Latestarter's ramblings/musings/gripes and grumbles.

[greybeard]

I'm unsure if the immobiliser prevents the animal from feeling the pain..probably just prevents the animal from reacting TO the pain, but I could very well be wrong on that. I haven't had the desire or need to look in to them that much.

(I have heard lots of good things about Aubrachs Jan)

 

[farmerjan]

@greybeard, it is mostly thanks to you getting me on the CT forum, that I learned about and got in touch with Walnut Crest and wound up getting semen to try on the dairy cross cows. Darrin was looking for a few sources to use them on to see if it added value to the resulting calves. I was very impressed with his journey with Begonia, and the artificial foot and besides the amount of money, the disposition of the heifer/now cow and how she has done. I like the double muscling aspects and the docility of the breed that I have read about. So I got semen, bred about 10 to a couple of the bulls, will see how many settled, and see what the calves turn out like next year. May be a good thing, might flunk out. Semen costs no more than any of the average angus etc., just the shipping, but it's an experiment. I am hoping for the females to be superior so that they can be bred back angus, keep the polled part, and have more body/butt. Black is what sells here, and having jersey in them will bring out the brown probably, but if they have some real added "beefier" bodies, then the cross will make the jersey crosses worth more. Anything with jersey in it shows the "finer bone structure" and they get discounted terrible at the sale. I like my milk cows, and right now have 3 nurse cows that have calved in the last month. The jersey has 2 calves, only has 2 good quarters this time, the old guernsey has 2 calves but she doesn't make alot of milk at her age but is a SUPER good nurse cow, and the 3/4 jer-1/4 holstein has 3 on her and is a good nurse cow too. So we will see. I am actually kinda excited and hope that most/all???? are settled AI.

 

[AClark]

OK, so I was browsing and ran across this: https://easttexas.craigslist.org/grd/d/animal-immobilizer/6302604481.html
So after looking at the pictures, I'm going to ping @greybeard and @farmerjan or any other large animal owner... Have you any experience with this item?

All this does is keep them from mowing you down while you do necessities. They still feel it, just can't do much if anything about it. Great for rowdy animals that you can't control or that are in a ton of pain and not controllable. Would I see a need for one? Not really, would probably never use it on a horse either though it says you can. Of course, we just tranquilize horses that are in the bat sh*t crazy mode and wait for them to fall over to work on them. I mean, if you can get them in a chute and stick something up their rear end, you can certainly pop a syringe full of Ace into their neck and wait 20 minutes - same effect. Not sure how well Ace works on cattle but works great on horses for that kind of thing.
We used to use a chute to halter break horses way back in the day. Had a mare that was reasonably gentle, but once that halter was on and a drag rope things got sketchy. She reared up and went over backwards and landed on my grandmothers legs. It shattered the leg that was on the bottom big time. We stopped "cowboying" them for that after that, though it takes a lot more time, it's worth it not to have shattered legs.

 

[Latestarter]

Thanks all for your input. I assumed it was electric and "stopped" nerves and froze muscles. Just wasn't sure and was hoping someone had actually seen it in use.

On another note entirely, had to close up the house last night for the temp. Ended up with a light frost this morning. Love this weather.

ETA: Just looked at the forecast and it's supposed to low 80's tomorrow then be down around freezing (34/33) on Friday and Saturday night... Might have to fire up the wood stove since Saturday's high is only upper 50s. Might get a bit chilly in here.

 

[AClark]

Same here for Friday, some cold front moving in. We are forecasted for 31 for the night temp and 52 for day time...I'm totally not into that at all!

 

[Bruce]

We aren't looking at frost the next few days, that is for you southern folk Our low tonight is forecasted to be 45° (at 8 AM Thursday), high 49° at 2 PM. Those are numbers that say "time to start the woodstove up". Not tomorrow morning though, I have to leave at 7 for MA, 4 hour drive. Unless I happen to wake up early, I'll not have time to mess with starting a fire.

 

[frustratedearthmother]

We were 37 this morning. Picture perfect day after it warmed up just a bit!

 

[CntryBoy777]

Projected hi tomorrow of 78 and 56 on Fri with chance of rain all day...lows Fri and Sat are 34 both days, temps rebound on Mon....guess I'll be lighting the pilots on Fri....

 

[HomeOnTheRange]

OK, so I was browsing and ran across this:

@Latestarter, thanks for posting the link. I saw that as well and thought about posting to see if anyone had heard of its' use.

 

[greybeard]

Here's an older discussion on the immobiliser from another board I'm on:
http://www.cattletoday.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=11625

(be aware, that board is mostly made up of 'seasoned' stockmen/stockwomen and the language and rhetoric can get 'colorful' at times...