The advantage is that dairy animals are worked daily from the time they are calves and take cues from the older animals in the herd. While beef animals don't get that type of attention typically.
The wife????77Herford said:
77Herford said:Yeah, what is it with those wive's. I considered the cattle prod once but was told I would lose any breeding privelages.
wildrosebeef, Good to know! It is also nice knowing that all of you very knowledgeable farmers out there, had to start somewhere too! (confession)WildRoseBeef said:In my experience (sorry to butt in here), scratching the head of a cow or bull is never a good idea because it will encourage the butting-instinct in that animal, which means he/she will think you are encouraging them to butt you by scratching their heads. The one method I heard of that probably works is that if an animal tries to push you or head-butt you when you're petting it, stop petting immediately. This is supposed to teach them that they won't get any attention if they try to be pushy with you, but they will if they stand nice and quiet. If the pushing gets too carried away, a quick bop to the muzzle will teach them that you don't tolerate getting pushed around.
You CAN scratch the neck, on the cheeks, and under the chin, and along the back but try to avoid the head as much as possible. Another method you can try is to try to feed the animal so that they are reaching up high above your head with their heads pointed in the sky. This is supposed to encourage a passive response to them because it mimics the stance they used when getting their mother's attention or suckling from their mommas, and is supposed to also get them more submissive towards you. I've never tried it, but it would be neat to hear or see of someone doing this.
A confession: I regret not knowing this sooner when I had a steer become a bit of a pet one year. I never really knew much about avoiding scratching the head and the head-butting thing and standing your ground and all that until after we sent him with the rest of the steers to get fattened up for butchering. He would head-butt me, but in a gentle way when he was younger, but I never thought of nor knew to correct him at the time. There were a lot of things that I had experienced when I was younger with cattle that I never knew at the time that I wished now I knew then. I guess we all just have to live and learn. :/
