Lorne Hindbo, a good stockman from Alberta wanted a little more explanation on the changes in the bull that was a little tough to load. I’m glad he asked, and I’ll use some examples to not answer the question, but help you answer it in your own mind and how you can make it work for you.

[From bull video session-Zoetis sponsored this for “Bulls for 21rst Century” -they do not sponsor Stockmanship and Stewardship for NCBA]

The normal response when a bovine animal gets on the fight for most humans is fear or anger, and I’m not saying either one is wrong, neither one is best for changing the animals state of mind. If your hurt or dead your not going to change it much either, so fear is probably not the worst thing.

We used to live right next to a ranch that had buffalo. I asked Billy Gehring, the owner if he minded if we rode out there. He didn’t, but told me to stay clear of the buffalo as they would chase a horse.

Mesa was real young and had a great old horse named Painter. We were back there riding and got to close to the buffalo and they did take off after us. It scared me to death as they were serious, and I was scared for Mesa. The whole bunch of buffalo at a run right behind us. Mesa and old Painter were getting after it and I sure we were going to get run over. I remember riding back home and being so shook up as my eight year old daughter had been in so much danger of having her horse fall a dead run in slick rough country or by having some big old buffalo bull hook her horse. I think it was the first time (I’m pretty sure it was the last time) we rode back to the barn and she didn’t have much to say.

I paid to go to a Bud Williams stockmanship school (I hope that gives me the right to discuss it hear)not to long after the incident. Well I asked him about how to deal with the situation. After a little debate he told this story to the class.

This is my memory of it, so it’s not what Bud said, but my interpretation of it.

There was a sow grizzly bear with cubs that was killing reindeer where they were employed. He went out to where she was on a snow machine and approached not directly at her but in sort of a back and forth ribbon pattern. When he got close enough that she stood up and challenged him (1/2mile?)
He stopped the machine and stepped back a few steps and waited. He waited for her to change her mind and walk off, then started again until she felt the need to challenge again, stopped, stepped back and waited. After she realized that she could move away from pressure, and the pressure would not chase her, she could accept the pressure not fight it. He said he drove her and her cubs several miles to the where she could fish and she didn’t come back.

Again, it was many years ago and I’m sure it’s not exact, but you can get the idea. Knowing how ferocious grizzlys can be, that really helped me to see how important it is to understand to change the mind of an animal.

Of coarse when I got home I went to work on the buffalo (unknown to the Gehrings), and started with the bulls. I would ride a colt and approach the bunch of bulls and go to working my colt and watch the bulls. When they would get up, I would stop and back my horse up. They’d shake their big old heads and try to bluff me and I would just wait. They would go back to their own business and I would go back to doing a little with the colt a little closer. Pretty quick they would move away from my pressure rather than challenge it. Then I could put a little more pressure on and they would move away from it. I used those buffalo as a place to work my colts and it wasn’t many days and I could drive them anywhere and they actually seemed to enjoy it.

As I rode away that first day after making a change on the buffalo, it was quite similar to the feeling I got from loading the bulls. Confidence and satisfaction.
Totally different than the fear I felt with them chasing Mesa and me.

As you might know I have been dealing with bucking bulls quite a lot in the past ten years or so. Some of them are sorta like grizzly bears that eat hay.

One year I bought 60 young bulls from D and H cattle Company. I could haul about 20 or so at a time in my old junker ground load. We would gather those bulls, and the one I wanted most, would run through someone and get away. He was real hooky. The last load we finally got him. I broke down on the way to South Dakota, and had to lay over for a day and I had heck getting him loaded back up. He was mean!

In South Dakota I would feed those bulls out in the pasture with my bale bed.
I would have to cut the strings from up on the pickup bed as he would try to hook you on the ground. He would come up and try to hook me when I was cutting strings from the pickup and I would rub his head and because he couldn’t hurt me I could stay there and not run from the pressure. He got to accepting that and actually started to come up to be scratched. Pretty soon I was on the ground and could scratch his tail head. Then I taught him to drive.
He got to where I could drive him anywhere and he seemed to enjoy me.

Wife Tammy would get so ticked of because she couldn’t drive him horseback or on foot. He would just shake his head when someone else tried to drive him and not move. I think because of the round bale and having it protect me and not moving from his pressure, I was able to stay with him until he changed his mind, and then we could start a conversation. If he would have been able to run me off, it wouldn’t have been a conversation, but him ordering me to leave. I was able to change his mind and getting him to “thinking” rather than “reacting”.

[This is my old buddy “H”.  I was so disappointed he didn’t buck.  I made hamburger out of him rather than go to salebarn as he would have hurt someone and We didn’t want him to go through it.]

That’s the key to this. The first thing is don’t get one on the fight with the wrong pressure in the first place. If something gets on the fight, and they have the advantage in the fight, you must back the pressure off enough to where you can negotiate or change the mind, before they attack you with the kind of pressure that affects you. If you over pressure and they attack and you must run or hide you will make it much tougher to change the mind as they have learned to pressure you to get out of pressure.

Learning to read when an animal is challenging your pressure is real important.
Learning to not retreat to far to display fear, but not stepping forward to much to display anger is what this is all about.

The most important thing is to stay SAFE. This is dangerous business we are talking about. It is not important enough to get hurt or killed for.

The other thing I remember Bud Williams saying in the grizzly bear story is that the snow machine ran real good and it was full of gas!

I mentioned the wall in Mexico last week and promised this video.

as Tom Russell says in the song, I’m not into politics, but they do effect the folks I work with.  So many of the feedlots and dairy’s I work at depend on Mexican labor to get the work that others aren’t willing to do.  I don’t know how we would survive without it.

Heres a little example of NAFTA in my world.

I was in Claresholme, Alberta and stopped at “Frontier” a favorite western store of mine.( they carry Greeley Hats)

I found some halters I liked and they were real cheap.  I grabbed 5 and headed to the checkout.  Mike told me they were made in Mexico.  So I bought inexpensive (because of the labor) Mexican made halters in Canada at a thirty percent discount because of the exchange rate, to take back to the U.S.

I’ve been telling you about loading and promoting loading bulls. Lucy Rechel is one of the real leaders and innovators of the beef industry.

She and her husband Dennis are amount some of my favorite people I have gotten to know in my work. They are having fun and enjoying life no matter if they are working, playing or killing something.(big time bow hunters)

I have gone to the bull test/feedlot several times (one time I got paid in sweet onions that they farmed). I really enjoy the noon meal, as they all eat together at the folks place.

Lucy took me up on my challenge of trailer loading training the bulls in the sale.
She and her crew worked with the bulls and got them to loading.

When I got there, we walked the bulls in a 100 foot round pen with an alley around it to stage the bulls. That was very interesting as you need to stay far enough away to not get in the shot. Then we would walk the bulls over and load them in the trailer.

One bull that was a little snuffy didn’t want to load, and I worked him pretty hard. It took about 45 minutes and he went from being scared to being on the fight to yielding to pressure and loading real nice, and not on the fight at all. I was on foot and I was pretty wore out, but it was real rewarding to make the change in the bull.

Lucy gets it. She is adamant her crew work cattle right, there is a sign at the load out to remind truckers to work the way she wants cattle to be handled, and she creates facilities that work but are not over the top expensive.

We worked hard for two days walking and loading bulls. I was wore out from all the foot work. We went back to the office when we were done and settled up (she tried to pay me in Draxxin) and I headed out and she was heading out to breed cows. A cowgirls work is never done.

I think this article and the videos of some of the bull work will tell you more than I can. The main point is when you train a bull to load in a trailer, you are teaching him to take pressure and how to respond to it. If you can’t see what advantages this creates there’s probably not much use in spending any more time on this scoop loop.

Write up for Western Livestock Journal

Trailer Trained –
Added Value from Snyder Bull Test

Bulls for the 21st Century, Snyder Livestock’s bull test and sale, is once again leading the industry in providing value to bull buyers in the form of trailer trained bulls.  Lucy Rechel and her crew have spent many hours teaching the bulls to load into a trailer.  The goal of the training is to sell ranchers bulls that will load into a trailer in the middle of a pasture or on the open range.  “Teaching the bulls that the trailer is a safe and comfortable place could be valuable to ranchers throughout the life of the bull,” says Rechel, bull test owner and manager.  As evidence of the training, the videos posted online show each bull stepping into the trailer.

Rechel was guided in the trailer training by Curt Pate, animal handling expert and educator with NCBA’s Stockmanship and Stewardship program.  Curt believes the value of the training is much broader than teaching the bulls to load into a trailer.  The bulls are taught to accept pressure and that will be evident whenever the bulls are being handled – into the chute for annual BSE or vaccinating, onto a scale, or just moving cattle from pasture to pasture.  Rechel is appreciative of the sponsorship of Zoetis for Curt Pate’s assistance in the trailer training project.

Trailer training provided unexpected benefits.  Rechel says, “what a great way to train my workers on how to handle cattle.  To load bulls individually into a trailer without the aid of alleys and gates requires a high level of handling skill.  My employees’ ability to read the cattle, anticipate their actions, and apply the right amount of pressure at the right time and from the right angle took a quantum leap through this project.”

Rechel adds one caveat: “These bulls can be untrained.  For cattlemen to enjoy the value of trailer training for the life of the bull, he must be handled correctly.  Some cattlemen evaluate their own handling ability on results – not process.  Getting a bull into a trailer or a chute with crowd pens and gates does not necessarily equate to cattle that are not stressed.  Forcing a bull with a rattle paddle, a loud yell, or a hotshot and slamming the gate before he can turn around is not stockmanship and is pretty likely to untrain the bull.  Many options are available for ranchers to become better cattle handlers and NCBA’s Stockmanship and Stewardship trainings offer prime opportunities.”

Rechel believes that correct cattle handling has very broad industry implications.  “When my employees learn to read cattle, and apply and relax pressure correctly the risk of someone being injured is greatly reduced.  Vaccines are more effective, animals are less likely to be injured, conception rates increase, bawling calves to learn drink and come to the feed bunk more quickly.  Cattle gain more weight with less input.  Consumers are historically focused on the quality and safety of the beef they purchase.  Today, they also want to understand how it is produced.  Good animal handling skills make it easy to be transparent about our ranching practices.”

The trailer trained bulls will be available at Bulls for the 21st Century annual sale on March 11, at the ranch in Yerington, Nevada. Bull sale catalogs are available on the website.

Check out the videos of Bulls on sale catalog and better yet, head to Yerington, Nevada and take in the sale.