How to catch a Long Horn calf

We live on a small farm with a few calves, chickens, rabbits, dogs, etc. This has been a long-held dream of ours and about eighteen months ago we made the dream a reality. All of our children have been able to use their own money to purchase and then learn to care for a variety of animals. This has provided multiple learning opportunities and, for the most part, has been a very positive experience.

A couple of weeks ago, one of our teenage sons, Jared, decided he wanted to try raising a long horn heifer. He found a herd of long horns not far from us and made an offer on one of the recently weaned calves. She was about 7 or 8 months old with horns stretching out only a few inches. Based on past experience an Angus heifer, he thought he would befriend her and eventually tame her enough to handle on our little ranch. However, we soon learned that Long Horns are a bit of a different breed.


After making the purchase, we backed up the trailer as far as we could to the barn and then made a path lined with hay bales stacked 3 bales high. This put the hay a little over the fence line and we thought she wouldn't be able to jump it. Watch the short clip to see what happened.

After jumping the hay, we all ran to the side of the house thinking we could scare her back in the right direction. But she wasn't about to cooperate! Instead of heading back to the pasture, she lowered her head and went straight for us with her 3-inch horns. We ducked out of the way. She turned and chased our daughter, Sarah, for a short distance and then found an opening in the fence and disappeared. Jared lamented, "There went $450."  We searched everywhere in vain.

Finally, she was spotted across the street behind a radio station. We hurried to the building, but once there we didn't know how to catch her. Calling the previous owner, he said he always just cornered them in the corral. Well, there was no corral, just open grass behind the building and a small shed. No place to corner her. Next we called animal control. They agreed to send someone. "Good," we thought and decided we would just have to wait until help arrived as we had no clue what to do.

After some waiting, we called them again. Nobody had even left their office yet. A few minutes later a police officer called to see if we had caught the calf. He said he was sitting in his office and would give us a few more minutes to try to catch her on our own before coming out. His exact words, "I'm not much of a cowboy, so I probably won't be much help."

So much for animal control!

We brainstormed who else we could call for assistance. Returning to our street, I knocked on one of the doors of our neighbors. Luckily, her son and one of his friends were home and they had roping experience. With enthusiasm they grabbed their ropes and headed over to the calf. 

Chasing her, they finally pinned her inside someone else's corral and looped their lassos on her. Then one of them strangle-held her into the trailer to get his rope off and ran out as the door shut behind him. She was caught...after about two hours of freedom and wasting most of our day. We returned her immediately. The owner wasn't surprised. He said the last time he sold one of his Long Horn beauties, the buyer chased her with a motorcycle, horse and truck without success. He finally had to shoot her to catch her. I'm glad we didn't have to go to that extreme. 

At the end of the day, we gathered around fast-food leftovers and laughed. We were tired and frayed, but so much of life is about perspective. One of our children said, "Isn't this why we moved here? To have these kind of adventures?" Well, maybe not exactly. But it is a bonus. 

Conclusion: never buy a Long Horn ... and if you do, bring a lasso and be prepared to run.