Like herding cats, but they're cattle

These pictures really don't show a whole bunch, but the do represent the first real work we've done to put the proverbial bread on the table.

The basic gist of the day was that before all the cattle give birth to their calves this spring and then go out to pasture they need to be "processed."  This processing includes giving a number of shots, treating for flies and lice and also verifying the identity of each animal.  Each animal is usually identified by a) a brand in the hide, b) a metal tag in ear, c) a plastic tag in each ear of the cow.  Despite this level of redundancy, they often get lost and the brand is hard to read.  So, part of this processing is to make sure we know every cow and can identify the animal in the future by replacing the plastic ear tags with new ones.

C made the tags, recorded each animal as it was processed, and helped with sorting and generally managing the animals.  P mostly did animal sorting and tried to stay out of the expert's way while still learnin' himself sump'n useful.

The animals are handled in batches and each animal is run through a chute and "processed."  The conditions this March in SD are not ideal; we had to deal with frozen snow, melting snow, and lots of animal output.  Sometimes the concoction even flew through the air.  Not entirely pleasant, but at the end of the day, you could even prove to a blind person from 20 feet away that you worked, and that feels good.

There was one casualty for the day.  The farm dog "Maggie" got her paw stepped on by a cow as the cow exited the chute and, quite honestly, was being harassed by the dog.  Hopefully nothing too serious in the long term has happened to Maggie, but for now we have a much more docile dog who is by-in-large limited to three paws.

There were also a couple of "exciting" cows.  One refused to be intimidated by any fences and simply jumped/climbed over any barrier put in her way.  She managed to never get processed.  Another cow decided to try to exit the chute by climbing out over the top.  Even though C was standing there wide-eyed and ready to catch her, she eventually fell back down and sat on her rump like a dog for a while before exiting like every other cow.  This event led to P having to do a little repair work in the chute.  The funniest cow story was a very ticked off old cow that turned her head back to look at dad and then promptly blew her nose in his face.  Perhaps you needed to be there to fully appreciate the humor.