Breaking Nicky

Nicky is LuLu's little bull calf.  He was born on August 5th and so that makes him 2 months old.  He's grown quite a bit.  He is frisky and spunky.  Lots of times we'll see him running around in the pasture, kicking up his heels with his tail in the air.  I've been thinking it is a good idea to begin breaking him as it is much easier to halter break them while they're young and small enough.  If they get too big, they end up pulling you instead of the other way around.

Many years ago, I would hook a lead rope to a halter and pull them.  It would be a literal tug of war.  I would pull and pull and pull.  The animal would pull and pull and pull back.  Sometimes the animal would flop on the ground.  Sometimes I would feel like flopping on the ground, too.  Eventually, the calf would get the idea that it is easier and less painful to just relent and go in the direction that I was pulling.  The animal would walk a few steps and then get stubborn again.  I would continue to pull until the calf would give in.  It took weeks.  It was hard work.  If you were persistent and kept at it, before long the animal would be broken.  The calf would go willingly anywhere you wanted it to go.

There is a much easier way to do it, I learned.  The same principle is used, but it doesn't require as much energy as the way I used to do it.  Each day when I go out to the barn, I get the breaking halter.  Nicky sees me doing that and plays this game where he runs away.  I feed his momma and while he's distracted, I stealthily put the rope around his neck and fit the halter around his head and nose.  Then I tie him securely to a solid post.  The goats are very interested in this process, as you can see.

While I have him tied up, it's a good opportunity to check out his horns.  A few weeks ago we used a de-horning iron to kill his horn buds.  The place where the horns were growing is flat.  No new growth.  The only thing remaining is a small scab.  Nicky will not have horns.  That makes Our Maker's Acres Family Farm a safer place.

What Nicky will do is this:  He will pull against that fence post as hard as he can.  Two safety precautions I'll mention:  Always leave enough slack so that if the animal falls down, he won't hang himself.  It is important to secure the animal to a place where they can't walk around and around and have the rope tighten up on them and choke them.  We had a friend have a calf the died like that.  We learned that if we are going to do this, we ALWAYS are nearby to supervise.

The calf pulls and pulls in stubborn fashion.  At some point, a light bulb goes off in it's head, saying, "It is a lot more comfortable to back off and stop pulling against this post."  When that concept has been considered and accepted, instead of pulling tightly, they take a few steps toward the post.  That loosens the halter around their head and nose.  We haven't reached that point yet.

To see if any headway is being made in the breaking process, from time to time, I'll untie him from the fence and pull around the pasture.  Nicky is still fighting me with everything he's got.  Just look at the determination and stubbornness in that little face.

That just means we've got more work to do.  I'll continue tying him to a post.  At some point (all calves' demeanor is different) he will acquiesce and I'll be able to lead him.  But that point hasn't arrived yet.  We will keep at it.  Sooner or later, things will come together and he'll lead.  Perhaps when Nicky is halter broken, he'll sing the old hymn, "He Leadeth Me, O Blessed Thought."  It will be a blessed thought indeed.