Stanchion Training & A Last Ride

Matilda in the stanchion

For this morning’s training session I changed one of the headgate pieces to its stationary position.  Which means that it is a lot tougher for them to fit their horns through the opening.  Once they were through that and showing signs of being comfortable then I moved the other piece into position too.

Maggie gave a mild struggle at first and then was happy to just eat apples.  Had a hard time convincing her to leave the stanchion when training was done.    She still doesn’t like to be touched, but compared to her behavior just a month ago the improvement is amazing!

Matilda did a great job too, and I actually put the second pin in and let her stand by herself long enough to snap a couple of pictures.   I was able to touch her on her back and hips without any protest from her as long as she had an apple in her mouth.  I need to finish up the feeder now, so that she can eat without my hand feeding her.   Then I can start on getting her desensitized to more touch.

While I was working with the cows, Bekah was busy giving Koozy apples and brushing him.  We are expecting a buyer to come tomorrow so she asked me to take pictures of her and Koozy this morning “so I can remember him forever!  And you need to give him a picture of me so he can remember me.”    So I took some pictures and she got to go on one last ride around the pasture.