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Disposition, is it Heritable or Learned

Yes, it can be both genetic and environment in my opinion. These cows are quiet and good to handle, but I'm sure there are a few which you could push to the point they'd get on the fight. I guess the key is reading the cattle and knowing how to avoid getting to that point in the first place.
 
lefty said:
This post drifted off coarse by a long ways ...........there are ranchers & there are cowboys & there are cowboy ranchers . The people that can do it all are all of these things rolled into 1 . What I would call the top hands of the industry you know who you are & so do others .
Disposition in cattle I would say is half breeding & half environment
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I'll take it a step farther... is being able to handle livestock, learned or inherited?
I'll use my old boss as an example, while I don't think he ever attended a Bub Williams class, he did attend a number of seminars on livestock handling. Had the pens set up according to the latest and greatest guru, but was absolutely impossible to work critters with. I have also seen people come straight out of the city, that had NO idea how to handle livestock, and with just a few minutes of coaching, were extremely good help.

I have been helping a guy, since Flyin S did his yard dart imitation. When it was the 2 of us, these cows were extremely easy to deal with. Now that he is laid up, I have been riding with a gal that has worked cattle all of her life. The same cows are higher headed, and a whole bunch more proddy then they were 2 weeks ago.
Just observations.
 
flyingS said:
Lefty, maybe it didn't drift so far of coarse as you think. I would say by the responses that disposition is more a factor of environment and handling than heritable trait. No doubt there are some animals that are born with bad dispositions and need to be culled. On the other side of the coin, maybe if we would take a look at how we handle something that we have a preconceived notion of, we can change that disposition. You can take a good protective mother that blows snot and raises heck but will not hurt you and turn her into one mean rip if you are scared of her and treat her like she is going to eat your lunch. We were at a neighbors working cows my inlaws cows through his facility. We had to sort a few of his cows out and pen them seperate when we were done. I don't remember what we were doing exactly, but we had to walk through those cows to get where we were going. One old girl was high headed and had run my brother in law out of the corral several times and seemed pretty serious. The neighbor came by and walk through the corral like he owned the place, I followed thinking he might be in trouble. The cow raised her head but never bothered either one of us, my brother inlaw started through and damn near didn't get back out the gate as she beat the hell out of it. Neither one of us were scared, he was from the beginning. His own cows act the same way, I have been around them for better than 10yrs and never had a problem with cows he won't get in the same pen with.
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But FlyingS, you are a lot bigger than your brother-in-law. The cows are intimidated because of this. :wink:

I was a little twirp about three years old and down at the barn with my dad. He had several Hereford cows in an open area about fifty feet by thirty feet. He was tying up cows to get calves to suck, and greasing teats afterwards. I was just lurking by a gate and soaking up the experience. One old cow with horns that curved out in front of her took a run at me. Dad was close by and spooked the cow off of me, then put me on the other side of the gate which was out in the cold, but also out of the way of erratic bovines. Truthfully, I have been somewhat scared of cows ever since, and have given them a lot of respect.

This long ago experience has probably influenced my desire to raise gentle cattle. I like docile cattle, but not pets that are in your face. With a lifetime of cattle experience, I would like to also think that I have gained the knowledge to "read" cattle, and anticipate their actions before the actual happening. Anyone that knows how to do this can spot a trouble maker out in the middle of a herd from quite a distance away. By eliminating a few trouble makers, and handling cattle correctly, a herd can become fairly easy to be around and to work.
 
A person might look at it this way. If, I am reactive and looking for a place to lay blame. I am probably going to blame genetics to escape any accountability and wash my hands of the problem by culling the cow. I will not use her genetic line, even if there is a huge advantage to her gene pool, because I am positive that everything wrong with her is heritable and can't have anything to do with her environment. The fella that has the same line and has a nice manageable set of cows is just an exception, because I tried them and they didn't work.
If, I am proactive and an optimist. I will try to step back and find away to solve the problem. When I run into the occasional cow that I can't change, I have to accept defeat and haul her to town. Trying the whole time to decide what I might have done differently to change the situation, knowing full well that there are some things you can't change.
I guess, it maybe heritable. I think it is much like a child who grows up with a poor home life full of abuse and disappointment. In turn as an adult uses their up bringing as an excuse to act the same way. It only takes that one significant influence int their life to turn them around. Life is what you make of it, so is your ranch and your cowherd. I honestly know very little of genetics or heritable trait. My advantage is not having any preconceived notions of any particular line. I guess ignorance is bliss.
 
Soapweed, what you said has a lot of merit. You aren't looking for a heritable trait you are looking for a desired response, when you don't get it she goes. I think there is a difference between being scared of cattle and respecting cattle. I am not easily intimidated and I have been run over my share. I also no my limitations and have some professional experience with such animals, some of you may not think it matters but it does. If I were to guess you have no idea what your cows genetic background is other than maybe what her mother was like. At this point in your life can you actually explain a disposition problem with a genetic line?
The chi-X cows we had growing up were not friendly to handle, we did not raise replacements for ranch cows. My family however did own a set of cows with the same breeding as the ranch cows and we did raise replacements. Part of those cows were the result of 4-H projects. A couple of the 4-H projects would eat your lunch if you tried to tag her calf. The problem was easily remedy by roping her and leading her off so someone could tag. The rest of the year you just had to worry about them scaring the hell out of you by sneaking up on you.
 

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