Need help with steer starting to charge

[SlickTxMaine]

Need a little advice, and I know all of you SP members are always willing to help.....We are working with my son's new steer.  Put a halter on him two weeks ago, that went fairly well.  Let him drag the halter/rope for a few days, caught the end of the rope and started tying him last week.  The first couple of times, we could approach and scratch his head, but now he is starting to blow snot and charge at us.  Are we moving too fast for him?  When we tie him, we can scratch him all over with a show stick, but if we get too close, or approach the front end, that's when he comes at you.  I have tried yelling NO and popping him on the nose with the handle end of the show stick, but it has not helped.  He seems pretty laid back and calm otherwise, just wants us to keep our distance.  Oh, we have also been hosing him with water when tied to get him used to being "touched"......could that be too much for him?  Any suggestions are appreciated.  This is only our second steer.

 

[stangs13]

Get a mop and brush that over him. It helps with the touchy feely...I didnt think it would work, but when I saw it used I was like wow, made a huge difference on some heifers that we were breaking! We start at the face petting him with our hands and go as far back as possible until they get nervous then we scoot back towards the head. Brush him, scratch him with the show stick..he will get used to you..it just takes patients.

 

[STX108]

Tie him short to where he cannot charge....

 

[afhm]

put him in a chute where he can't get to you and go to town rubbing on him.

 

[knabe]

animals have bubbles of awareness and tolerance.  they are not perfect circles.  if you move in the circle without "permission" you will see things like this.  tying them up, putting them in chutes disguises this behavior and most animals can be gentled down this way.  cattle are curious, use this to your advantage.  if the halter is on, pick up the lead end and put a slight amount of tension on it.  if he directs his ears at you, or looks at you, release the tension, repeat over and over and eventually move towards getting him to shift his weight towards you, then get that inside front foot, each positive move reward with a release of the halter.

if you do this, you will not be able to disguise the honesty in communication between you and the animal.  a lot more trust is instilled between you and the animal

 

[SlickTxMaine]

Lots of great suggestions.  Thanks!  I think we got carried away, because he is so much calmer than last year's calf.  We probably moved too fast!  Thanks again, we'll put these ideas into use and see what happens.

 

[CAB]

  One of the least favorite places for a calf to be touched is their face. They all tend to not like it and it actually can teach them to charge. Brent

 

[common sense]

Don't give up but don't go too fast, like you said.  Charging is a response and is a fear reaction in most cases.  He obviously does NOT like his head touched so don't touch his head anymore. Find a spot on his body this is your "approach" location.  You need to choose a spot that he loves to have scratched.  That is the first place you ALWAYS approach him.  Get him in a smaller pen, approximately 12 X 12 or a little larger. Work at rewarding him for good behavior while you are in the pen with him.  If he tries to charge you, quickly jerk upward on the halter and pull his head away from you. DO NOT HIT HIM IN THE HEAD/FACE if you can avoid it.  Stand your ground and say "NO" or "HEY" very loudly and roughly.  Doing this and turning his head up and away or around will throw him  off balance and make him disengage his body.  This is not for kids; make sure you have a strong adult to handle this.  If you can't get him to disengage his body from this head-down forward movement, step around him and push his hip away from you. Keep making him move away from you.  That will immediately make you the dominant "animal".

Step back an asses what is going on when he does this.  Something is causing fear and he is responding by trying to defend himself.  It may be as simple as a bad experience when somebody was putting a halter on him.  Spend a half hour standing at his shoulder and slipping a halter on and off of his head.  Each time he lets you quietly slip it on or off reward him with something he likes even if it's just scratching a certain spot on his butt.

I can't stress enough that you have to make sure everyone that has contact with him does  NOT touch his head/ears or neck.  Work with him like this for a few days and when you seriously think you are over the hump you can find an old towel and start gently laying it across his neck and over his ears while he is tied up/  If he starts to resist or stress, back off and just work on his shoulders for a while.  It might take you a dozen sessions but eventually you need to work up to having him let you just drape it over his head and rub him all over with it. 

Some will never give in.  He may have had a terrible experiene in the pasture when he was just a calf and he simply isn't going to give it up.  You just have to remember that you don't give him any love pats on the head.

Be careful and good luck.
Juli

 

[OLD WORLD SHORTIE]

        Im sure you have in a stall with you. So get in that stall with him and a long show stick. Walk behind him, he will naturally go to the edge of the stall and come to stop at a certain place in the stall. If he does not want to move use the stick to get him moving. Once you and him have determined his happy spot in the stall walk him another rotation and when he gets to that spot, use the show stick to rub his back, belly, rump, legs and pretty much anywhere he will let you. You will be able to see it when he has had enough or is annoyed by the attention. So, just make another ration in the stall and continue rubbing him with the show stick.
        Gradually this animal will start to trust you and so move in a little every time continually rubbing him, and you will find out which spots it likes and dislikes as mentioned earlier. Continue to do this until the animal lets you brush him, as you brush him please steer clear of the head. I like to not touch my animals heads as i feel this can lead to the animal thinking it is play time and wanting to head but or play charge with that head down. So the Neck is where i tell kids to rub, not the head. Now that you and your animal has gained enough trust in each other through stick rubbing and constant brushing, it is time to introduce the halter, i like to gradually introduce the halter first by just hanging it over my should so the animal is aware of the new object in its space. Then through my brushing, i slowly rub the halter on the animal. I continue with this every day First sticking, then brushing , then rubbing with the halter this will gradually calm down any animal that has ever been put in my barn. Only after all this do i put the halter on,  but im not just gonna put the halter on and leave it tied up for hours right off the bat. When i get their halter on i continue with the stick rubbing, and brushing all with the halter in my hand. Remember these animals have to trust you before they will follow you.
      Of course when something new comes into the barn i like to feed it for two or three weeks before i even mess with it.This gives the animal time adjust to its new surroundings, and lets it understand that it is depending on you for food and water.

 

[dcbehle]

  We have a very nervous calf this year that has caused us fits this. Both my son and I are patient and calm by nature and have always used a method similar to Red's that is posted on here. My son purchased two club calves this year and one we purchased with the knowledge that he was stubborn and would likely to be difficult to break. He has been a great calf to work with so far. The other one was from an extremely gentle mama, but he has the nervous streak from his grand sire Heat Seeker. From the day we picked him up last fall he has been a very nervous jumper and it has been extremely tough to break.
  Since last fall we have tried to tie him up on a regular basis, but by this spring it has been nearly impossible to get a halter on him since we do not have a good head gate or working panels to catch or work them with. Once we get a halter on him we need to be close to the fence to get him tied up or we lose him. We've been brushing and even rinsing regularly and he does enjoy brushing over his back and butt. However, once we untie him he is off to the races again. This weekend we tried a method we read on this site involving a very long rope halter. We attached an old rope lariat to his halter and once we got the halter on him my son would work with him in a smaller pen. This allowed us to control the animal even when it would get as far away as 20 feet. We kept a modest amount of tension on the halter/rope and when the calf would get scared, my son had plenty of rope to let out with out the calf getting away. After about 20 minutes, my son was able to routinely shorten the lead to where he could rub or brush the calf. When ever the calf would get nervous, we still had plenty of room to work with and we could get close enough to rub within a minute or two after that.
  The big thing we have found with this is that both my son and the calf are much more comfortable with each other and the calf has learned that he can't get away anymore. We still have 60 days until fair and we expect to have him ready by then. The only thing better would be if my son had more free time to show in some progress shows. It is so difficult to juggle athletics with 4-H. Fortunately he loves them both!

 

[SlickTxMaine]

Thanks again for all the advice.  He is coming along.  We have slowed down the process.  We tie him up and scratch him with the show stick, and I used the broom....worked great!!  The first couple of times, did not even try to get close to him.  After a couple of days of that, I would take a step closer while scratching him with the broom or show stick and judge his reaction.  I had him tied up pretty high, so he could not charge.  I approached slowly, one step at a time, with a break in between, until I was close enough to brush him.  I brushed briefly and then stepped away, let him rest a couple of minutes, and  repeated.  I am now able to approach him and brush him w/o the broom.  I also found that he loves the cube feed we have on hand for the other cattle.  I keep two or three of those in my pocket, and when things are going good, I give him one.  He actaully met me at the gate last night!  I really think we moved too quickly.  He seemed so much calmer than the calf my son had last year that we thought it was going to be so easy.  So, it ended up, we were the ones that needed work.....not the calf!! 

 

[inthebarnagain]

Isn't it funny that the ones that literally come up to you in the pasture to be petted as baby calves seem to be the worst ones to halter break?  And I think it is because we expect more out of them.