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Post by stevegove on Dec 2, 2010 9:56:17 GMT -5
I bought a 6 year old Dexter cow she is wild I have had her 2 weeks and got a halter on her while she ate grain.
She lets me pet her some but does not like it
Will she tame down enough to milk next spring?
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Post by Star Creek Dexters on Dec 2, 2010 10:06:43 GMT -5
It really depends on the cow. But if you work with her everyday, use food to make her your friend, and slowly get her used to you touching her all over, I would say you have a good chance of being able to milk her by Spring. Some cows really do not like being touched when they haven't been raised to know that it's OK, but others don't mind at all once they know they can trust you.
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lsg
member
Posts: 247 
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Post by lsg on Dec 3, 2010 8:06:05 GMT -5
As Kimberly said, it depends on the cow. We have bought three Dexters from the same lady. They were all pasture raised and the only time they were worked with was when they were penned to sell the calves off. All of them were wild acting at first.
One we got as an in-calf heifer, I penned her in the feed lot with other calves and worked with her until I could get her to let me touch her while she ate feed. From there it was just a matter of time and patience. I started to pet her, then let her into the barn and fed her by herself. While she was eating, I would stroke her and talk to her. Then I started brushing her while she ate. After a while we put on a halter. Then we tied her while she ate. All the time I was working with her, I would talk to her in a low, soothing voice. Getting an animal used to your touch and voice, goes a long way in gentling them.
With the other two cows, we took off their horns as soon as we got them home, as one was very aggressive. That solved the aggression problem, but we still had to work with them to gentle them. One of the cows got so gentle that we could milk her while she was tied. The other one never got that gentle, but I am sure she would have if we had kept working with her. We finally sold those two cows to a neighbor. I bought back the heifer calf from the neighbor and went through the same process of gentling her. She is a Circle H Frederick calf and is polled. Keeping a cow in a small area helps a lot when gentling them.
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