Sorting Tip
A simple way to sort calves from cows.
Sorting calves away from cows for branding/vaccinating, artificial insemination (AI) protocols, preweaning vaccinations, weaning, etc., can be time-consuming. Some producers use an alley where cows are encouraged to go one way and calves another, but this takes at least two people, good swinging gates, and cattle sometimes bunch up in the sorting area when cows don’t want to leave their calves.
An innovative refinement of this idea allows natural movements of the animals to sort themselves. Joe Stookey, professor at Western College of Veterinary Medicine, Saskatoon, Sask., says that when cattle are put into a corral, their tendency is to turn around and come back out that gate.
“If you have another pen adjacent to the gate, you can sort calves into the other pen as the cows go out,” he explains. “In our facility, we drop the bottom rails off, so calves can go through the fence into the adjacent pen. One person can direct traffic, letting the cows out. The calves scoot under the rails into the other pen.”
The adjacent pen extends parallel with the gate/alley the cows are going out, so the calves keep traveling alongside mama, but are now in that adjacent pen with a fence between them. They all keep moving past the gate.
The cows don’t try to go under the rails, being too tall to fit comfortably. The calves, being more timid, hang back a little, not wanting to come that close to the person standing there, and choose to go under the pole.
“If there is no pressure on them, the cows go past you and out the gate, and with subtle movement you can stop the calf,” Stookey says. “He’ll go under the fence and keep coming along to try to follow mama. Both the cow and calf keep walking on past you, with no balling up at the gate.
“If there’s just a gate for sorting, you soon have cows trying to come back in for their calves, and calves trying to go out the gate to catch up with mom,” he continues. This creates a bottleneck, making it more difficult to sort the rest of the herd.
“In our facility we don’t swing gates anymore. We just have movable rails where we direct traffic. We can sort hundreds of cattle, separating calves from cows, in just a few minutes. The adjustable rails can be raised or lowered, depending on age/size/height of calves. The bottom pole should be high enough calves can go under without touching their backs. If they have to actually duck, they are more reluctant to move through that hole,” Stookey explains.
He recently prepared a video showing how smoothly it works. It can be viewed on YouTube at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P4FUE-OrXRw.
Editor’s Note: Heather Smith Thomas is a freelancer and cattlewoman located near Salmon, Idaho.
