ive done calving and branding. this is NOT for 7-14 year old city kids. i know friends in their 20 and 30 who have gotten broken legs, ribs, and burned from doing this. (i got a deep bruise down to the bone due to a cow in labor calving) it is dangerous and deadly.)
perhaps we should tell PETA on this one since the kids may be forced to do this against their will??
well, it's just evil to force 7 year olds to do such cruel things. I am vegetarian. But most non-vetarians would have problems
with tortuing animals...How can they FORCE kids to TORTURE animals. That constitutes psychological torture of a child.
ok let this farm boy break this down.
1. branding. not used very much now that we have ear tags and RFID implants. just like you dog or cat could have. so why they do it i dont know. wast of time and energy. thought cheaper than ear tangs let alone RFID.
2. calving. ok this is where i get graphic sorry. calving is where you help the cow give birth. some times in a breach birth you have to put it in a ketch pin block its rear hooves (that is a major thing) lube up your arm and i mean your whole arm to the sholder reach inside her and turn the calf around (ya not something for young children to be doing)
castration. now a days we dont cut the balls off. we band them off. think of it like this. we put them in the pin or hold them down (here again not an easy feat a few week old calf can throw a man about 100 pounds let alone a 6 month old calf) get a special castration tool place basically a rubber band on it open the jaws and roll the rubber band onto the top part of the calfs sack. wait about a week and they fall off. less painful than cutting and less risk of infection or accidentally stabbing the calf due to their movement. cutting the balls is now days considered not very healthy.
also if your doing calving the cow is not too dam happy when you are around her calf. ive been hit while tagging. mom came up from behind me and sent me for one hell of a ride.
a lot of this stuff other than the ear tag is now done by vets and for good reason. less stress on the animal less injury's to the farm hands. it is a very dangrous thing to be around a 1000 pound cow. and if they get pissed at you (and it can be any time and there is no such thing as a pet cow trust me on that) your screwed. i know guys who have been trampled, kicked (you live but your hurt like all hell) and dragged. these are grown men who have done this most of their lifes and they still get hurt. i grew up around a farm, there is no farmer who would ever let anyone under 10 near a calving cow, let alone in the dam pin when calving. its usually around the 15 to 18 range that they get in. some sooner depending on how they can handle it. but we are talking farm kids not city kids like are on MR. this smells like a death sentence waiting to happen and a lot of useless tasks that can hurt the animals.