Safety at stock shows is incredibly important. Avoid these common stock show safety mistakes.
I am essentially an accident waiting to happen, a commonly known fact among my family and friends.
If cattle kick, I’ll find them. If a bar is going to fall out of a chute and hit someone on the head…it’s me. Apparently, I’m one of a couple of things, too tough or too dumb to quit.
Chute Bars Hurt!
One year at Cow Palace, I was helping a girl fit her steer. I was just learning…always take the opportunity to practice on someone else’s cattle.
When he just about tipped the chute over several times, I realized how dumb her calf was. I was on front legs and he cow-kicked the bar…which flew forward and hit me in the forehead.
I’d seen Cody Reid get kicked in the nose the day before while fitting a hind leg. He went straight back to fitting. I thought “this guy is crazy.” But I was new, so what did I know?
When it happened to me, I figured I’d better just suck it up and get back to it. To this day, I still have a little bump on my hairline from that deal.
We Are All Crazy
Want to know the truth? We are all crazy. We sit down, lay down and get upside down with four-legged beasts who at any point can step on or kick you. Worse, the gentle ones lul us into acting as if we are cuddling a teddy bear… and then we are just shocked when some random thing happens and we get hurt.
So what can we do to reduce stock show safety mistakes not only for ourselves but for cattle as well?
Scotch Comb
On our Instagram story, I asked people for their number one safety tip…overwhelmingly it was about combs. Keep the teeth pointed down if you set it on the ground and toward your body when in your pocket.
If you cripple your calf when he steps on a comb…oh boy! I’ve seen the best fitting team get beat in a fitting contest…because they consistently left their combs with the teeth up.
It seems fine until you’re by a chute and a metal comb goes through your shoe or someone squeezes by you with a comb in their pocket and it catches you…the metal ones hurt!
jdcowgirl13
Don’t Startle Them
We get in a hurry and just go straight to washing, brushing or blowing. Have you ever turned the hose directly onto a calf’s hind leg and he kicked? I’m constantly reminding people in the show barn to point the hose away from the cattle when they turn it on. This is particularly true when they are babies.
Know where your blower hose is while you are blowing.
We tease Will that he can make gentle cattle kick… He’s always dragging the hose along their back legs as he moves around. This is a common stock show safety mistake because cattle don’t like things dragging on their back feet. To be fair, he’s improved dramatically as he’s gotten older. But, nearly ALL kids we’ve worked with do it.
Noise
Another thing to consider is music in your barn. We love music, it helps to pass the time. In spite of his young age, Will loves him some ‘80’s rock… LOUD! I finally banned it from the barn last fall. I’m convinced after, watching them, that music blaring that that loud in their faces stresses them. My opinion: choose some good red dirt country.
Right about now is where my friends who have speakers custom built in the tack box and crank it up are going to argue with me.
I’m pretty sure the CIA uses crazy loud music as an interrogation technique.
Dumb things with a chute…I’ve done it!!!
Honestly, I’m fairly certain I’ve done every dumb thing you can do. The floor of my chute was cracking when I was in High School. So, I thought I’d just take it out…
Ummmm…
The funny thing about chute floors…without them cattle can just walk off wearing a chute.
Make sure your floors are in good shape. Also, check the welds of a homemade chute or older chute that was handed down to you. Keep from making my many stock show safety mistakes.
I watched a 2-year old Hereford bull completely tear a new aluminum chute apart at Hereford Reno one year.
Bad Trailer Floors Can Cause Tragedy
Check the floor of your trailer regularly, regardless if it’s wood or aluminum. Wood rots and welds or rivets crack. Thank goodness, I’ve never experienced or had to witness the horror stories of a trailer floor falling out.
Stock Show Safety Mistakes
There are many more safety tips out there…please comment below with your best tip. Pass this along to someone who could use a little refresher.
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