leave it on or take it off

[WBar Farms]

Do you leave the rope halters on or taking them off in the calming and begining stages of working with your cattle? Or is it good to practice that interaction of putting it on and all that?

 

[cornershack]

we leave ours on, but definitely tie a knot right at the cheek so it cannt tighten too much or they cannt rub it off. obviously checking it every time is also really important. we use it to catch them the first couple weeks then tie to eat. after that they should be good enough to get close enough to put one over their ears.  also have one of the chain chin training halters to teach them respect for the chain lead. helps them get over the "fear" of the chain. teaches them that if i pull it tightens, if i let go i stops pulling. the less chasing in the beginning the better, they learn fast that im caught no use in playing cat and mouse. after they are caught just rub them with a show stick on that ichy spot. takes some time to get used to it but they will look forward to that also. we had one that would come up and wait for his scratch.

 

[CAB]

We used to leave them on and let them drag em, but the last several years we have been taking them off & I am convinced that it is better to take them off. When they get used to you it doesn't take very long to put them on & when you do it this way the calves get to know when it is time to go to work so to speak. Also another big thing is to put a ring in the halter for the lead to slide through easily. The calves will learn at least twice as fast if not faster what is expected of them with the ring in the halter.

 

[squirt71]

We usually leave them on, but only for 2-3 days.  Otherwise they get used to the pulling down from the halter and think they need to walk with their head down.  After that, they're usually used to us and broke enough that we start catching them in a small pen.  With calves over 700 lbs., we re-halter every time we work with them.  I'm not sure why but this seems to work better with bigger calves than letting the halters drag for a few days.

 

[hamburgman]

always felt our calves got too head bossy when we left the halters on.  When we took them off, they stopped being head bossy.

 

[taylor tay]

We first catch the calves and run them through the chute. Then we put the halter on and tied them to pull, we would then remove the halter once training was done

 

[vc]

We stopped leaving the halter on after the second set of steers, Calves seem to get used to being haltered fairly quick, and learn to lead much quicker if they have not been stepping on the halter. They learn to stop when there is pressure instead of step forward when they feel pressure, with the halter dragging.
As long as you have a way to confine them so you can get to their heads you can halter them, if not we have used the showstick to get it on them at first.

 

[SeannyT]

I'll agree with what the consensus seems to be: take it off. Its safer for the animals and like CAB said, once their semi-broke getting the halter back on is pretty easy.

 

[GoWyo]

For the calves that have been haltered but are hard to catch, I just use a rope (lariat) and use just a gentle flip toss (do not chase them around the corral with an overhead swing) to catch them and put halters on.  After 3 or 4 days of that, they just give up and stand to be caught.

 

[SongBird1232]

For ones that don't let you touch their head or are hard to catch, we leave older halters on for a couple of days then hopefully they'll let us catch them. But if they let you halter them real easily, then you can take it off.

 

[Aussie]

We used to leave them on and let them drag em, but the last several years we have been taking them off & I am convinced that it is better to take them off. When they get used to you it doesn't take very long to put them on & when you do it this way the calves get to know when it is time to go to work so to speak. Also another big thing is to put a ring in the halter for the lead to slide through easily. The calves will learn at least twice as fast if not faster what is expected of them with the ring in the halter.

I agree with this it is what I have found. Used halters with rings for the first time this year and are great for breaking easy to get on and off and the calves learn about pressure release quickly.

 

[vc]

We have a trick we use for the calves that wont let get close enough to put the halter. We open the halter up, put the halter on the end of a showstick, hold on to the end of the lead, slide the halter over the nose, with the extra slack you can get it over the out side ear than pull the other side over the ear closest to you with the showstick. Once the halter is on you twist the lead as you pull it tight, you twist it so the loop swings towards the calf as you tighten the halter, if you don't the loop misses the nose and you have to start over.
It usually take 2 people, one just get the calf to turn to you so you can get at his head.

 

[lowann]

Years experience. OFF!

 

[STEER_1981]

Dave Guyer leaves his halters off.  Otherwise, you train your calves to pull and lurch when there's tension on the rope. 

 

[Rocky Hill Simmental]

I've tried both ways. I've always had much better luck with just leaving them on.

 

[flacowman]

first couple of calves we left em on but the past several years we've taken them off.  The only problem we ever had was an angus heifer that liked to play tag when it came time to catch her, but roping her for about 3 days fixed that habit.  As long as you do it right and start in about a 10x10 box you should have the halter on in around 5 minutes every day until you no longer need to catch them in the box.  we just use the same little pen that we start breaking in.