Bob M
Well-known member
This is my first time on Ranchers Net since the format changed although I have enjoyed reading and looking at pictures. My step daughter, Patty, is here from Texas and helped me register again so I expect to exchange conversations in the future. Soapweed is a familiar name on this webste and I happen to be his father. He and his wife, Peach Blossom, and their family are some of my favorite people.
Soapweed learned about all that I know about ranching before he started on his own some thirty years ago. I retired in the early 90s and leased my part of the ranch to him and Peach Blossom. They have done a good job managing and have been conservative as far as cattle numbers per acre and have maintained buildings, fences and windmills in a manner that they have appreciated rather than depreciated.
I have been interested in the disciussion of various methods of pulling calves. Before calf pullers became popular we had a post eight or ten feet behind the stanchion. We used a soft rope around the two feet of the calf then tied it loosely back to the post. We used a couple of gate stick type posts half hitching one into the rope in a vertical manner and the other one half way up on the first one half hitched horizontally. Then all you had to do was turn the horizontal post windiig the rope on the vertical post with much leverage and pulling power. You could lock the horizontal one by letting the end back up against the rope and put pressure side ways or downward by hanging on and backing up against the tight rope.
Ed Wilder worked on my ranch for several years after Soapweed started ranching on his own. I had previously broken front legs on calves by the conventional method of having the chain around the leg above the ankle. (Soapweed learned in later years to put a half hitch below the ankle and eliminated that problem). Ed always used a strap around the space between the ankle and the hoof. Back in those days we pulled many calves before we started watching birthiweights on bulls etc. but never broke a leg or crippled a calf.
If anyone would like to know how to get a calf out with the head turned back I will relate that later.[/b]
Soapweed learned about all that I know about ranching before he started on his own some thirty years ago. I retired in the early 90s and leased my part of the ranch to him and Peach Blossom. They have done a good job managing and have been conservative as far as cattle numbers per acre and have maintained buildings, fences and windmills in a manner that they have appreciated rather than depreciated.
I have been interested in the disciussion of various methods of pulling calves. Before calf pullers became popular we had a post eight or ten feet behind the stanchion. We used a soft rope around the two feet of the calf then tied it loosely back to the post. We used a couple of gate stick type posts half hitching one into the rope in a vertical manner and the other one half way up on the first one half hitched horizontally. Then all you had to do was turn the horizontal post windiig the rope on the vertical post with much leverage and pulling power. You could lock the horizontal one by letting the end back up against the rope and put pressure side ways or downward by hanging on and backing up against the tight rope.
Ed Wilder worked on my ranch for several years after Soapweed started ranching on his own. I had previously broken front legs on calves by the conventional method of having the chain around the leg above the ankle. (Soapweed learned in later years to put a half hitch below the ankle and eliminated that problem). Ed always used a strap around the space between the ankle and the hoof. Back in those days we pulled many calves before we started watching birthiweights on bulls etc. but never broke a leg or crippled a calf.
If anyone would like to know how to get a calf out with the head turned back I will relate that later.[/b]
