Posted by DL (dragon lady) on 4/8/2007, 10:48 am, in reply to "Re: spooky steer"
67.72.98.45

Cattle, especially high strung cattle, can become very stressed when presented with something novel - it appears that your steer doesn't get around much - and when he gets out in new environments with unexpected sights and sounds and things he reacts as one would expect him to - he freaks out. That is one of the reasons that exposing calves to a whole host of things is a really good idea - they know it isn't going to kill them and they don't freak out. I think it was show2win who said she used to take her show calves all over the place to expose them to everything. Jen gave you some good ideas - he needs to be exposed to allsorts of things so he knows it isn't a big deal. There is no quick fix for this sort of issue - it will take a chunk of work on your part - and he may never be tatally comfortable (since many impressions of scary things are made when calves are young). Clearly drugging him with prescription drugs that are not legal to use in this situation didn't work - so you will have to take a different tact - good luck, dl

Message Thread: spooky steer - deab 4/7/2007, 9:45 pm Re: spooky steer - Jen 4/8/2007, 8:15 am Re: spooky steer - DL 4/8/2007, 10:48 am Re: spooky steer - 40yrold4her 4/9/2007, 8:51 pm