Question on cow Behavior

[SBSurburban]

HI All,

I am looking at purchasing a cow that the sellers are saying is "tempermental" when I inquired further they said that she will paw the ground at them (but hasn't charged yet) when she is in heat and when she has a calf. I am in the belief that this is normal cow behavior but I just want to be sure as this will be our first time attempting breeding our own cattle and I don't want to breed in agressiveness if this isn't normal.

Any help is greatly appreciated.

 

[SageHill]

I know very little about cow behavior. @farmerjan is the expert on them. If the seller is saying she is "temperamental" that would be a yellow flag for me and especially if this is your first go into having and breeding cows.

 

[canesisters]

For me that would be a big NOPE.
I would expect that any behavior they've seen while she's in heat you can expect to see 10x worse once she calves.
But - I don't have facilities & equipment to manage 'wild' cattle. I don't have chutes, squeezes, dogs or 4-wheeler or tractor. Here, the cows must come when called, respect gentle restraint, halter & lead. More than once I've had to pick up a calf that had somehow gotten in the wrong side of a fence & carry it to a more suitable space while it's mother calmly followed. I need to be able to enter a stall & check on the wellbeing of both cow & calf.

I had a heifer here once that was downright dangerous. She was so bad that her mom didn't even want to be around her to nurse. I had to keep her separated into a small paddock built from gates & corral panels because I couldn't risk her getting out of the pasture & encountering someone. She seemed to plan out how to get behind people & then charge. I wouldn't enter her pen unless I HAD to & I took a weapon, often a 2x4... and had to use it a couple of times. She went to the processor somewhere around 8-10 months if I remember right.

 

[Baymule]

Pass on this one. It’s dangerous behavior especially for a small farmer. Someone will get hurt. I have a neighbor who expects his cows to be calm, gentle, raise their calf and not go through fences. Any cow that challenges him, calf or no calf, is hauled to the next auction.

I raise Katahdin hair sheep. Rams, well they RAM things, people too. I won’t have a “rammy” Ram. It’s not worth it.

 

[farmerjan]

NO NO NO NO......Any cow that wants to paw the ground and then "threaten" and think about maybe charging is a BAD INVESTMENT....
NO, NOT NORMAL unless this animal is protecting it's calf from a predator... and you are NOT A PREDATOR....

You will get hurt. She would have to have the most outstanding pedigree with only 5 of them left in the whole world... for us to consider wanting to try this cow., and we run 150 head. The ONLY TIME we cut a cow any slack is when she has a newborn calf on the ground and then she had better get her act together within a couple days. WE ARE NOT her enemy; and then not aggressive behavior but more standoffish... for a couple days.

There are way too many cows that will hurt you, and then the owners get a bad taste. DO NOT start out with an animal that is like that.

You also did not say if this was a dairy or a beef cow. More beef cows will be a little more likely to want to keep a little space when they have new calf for a few days...then as soon as the calf is getting around better, will be fine. A dairy cow that is like that is downright the worst thing a person new to cows should be around.

Cattle prices are very high.... don't invest that kind of money in something that could do some serious damage.

 

[DogsCowsChicken]

I'm a hand on a cow/calf beef ranch with about 450 head in our permanent herd. A cow we bought last fall started hoofing a couple of months ago, but seemed otherwise still sweet... until she wasn't. Then she started charging a few weeks ago... me, my boss, the selling agent, the day help. She started seeking out someone to charge and would cross a pasture to do it. She made it hard to feed, hard to check fences. She was a small cow, but she was scary. She went to McDonald's when we weaned at the beginning of this month.

A cow like that will turn good cows bad, too. There are a few in her herd that sometimes get a funny look in their eyes because we left her too long.

I would pass on "temperamental."

 

[farmerjan]

So, what was the final decision on this "tempermental cow"