Pressure and Release to Move Stock
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This past week I learned the importance of using and teaching the concept of pressure and release on stock I am handling. Teaching the concept of pressure is vital to being able to move stock in a low-stress environment to the desired destination. Pressure and release is watching the stock you are trying to move and putting pressure on them inside their flight zone. When they move away from the pressure in the direction you desire, you have to release the pressure, rewarding the stock and letting them know they are doing what you are wanting of them. If they start moving in the direction you don’t want them to go, then reapply pressure and wait for them to respond to that pressure.
I helped re-assemble the branding pen this week. We moved the branding pen from a high knob in the fields to the bottom corner of the same field. The hypothesis is that this will make it easier to gather and push the cow-calf pairs into the branding pen. The only thing I can see being a problem with this is that the area the branding pen was moved to has tall grass, which might make it more difficult to rope calves during the branding. This in turn might make it less efficient and take more time to brand.
Assisting with a difficult calvingI am learning that irrigation is a big part of being able to grow grass for cattle, to be utilized as feed during the winter months here in Wyoming. In the past two weeks, I’ve been assisting in irrigating a couple different fields. While I’ve been irrigating, I’ve looked at one field in particular that has a low spot running directly down the middle of it for the majority of the field. All the water that is kicked out on both sides of the field runs into the middle of it where the low spot is and for the most part just sits there and doesn’t go anywhere. This ends up creating swamp grass which cattle are not particularly fond of eating. My question is why would you not just put a ditch in the bottom of the low spot to take the water elsewhere and encourage growth of more palatable grasses for the cattle.
I plan on moving forward to try and work on using the concept of pressure and release while I’m moving cattle, as well as trying to be better at watching cattle to be able to handle them in a more low-stress and more efficient way. I also want to try and find new ways to create more growth of palatable grasses for cattle in the fields at the ranch I am working at.
