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adventure arrowquip cattle cattle management vet work

Cattle Handling with Arrowquip

On Thursday I went to Pearson Farm & Fence in Moses Lake, WA to pick up our new Arrowquip Q-Catch 74 Series Squeeze chute. This is a new design that is much less expensive than the 86 series. I believe it’s a bit smaller and they have been running a special at $4250, so I felt the price was right and I needed one, so I bought one.

I can’t say enough good things about Pearson Farm & Fence. They helped me out every step of the way and were very good to work with. Check them out if you’re ever in Moses Lake, WA.

Arrowquip has been great to work with as well. The chute looks and operates very nicely. I have never had or used one before, but this one has so many cool features, I am glad I bought it.

I set it up right by the pen where we keep our yearling bull, soon to be steer. We have some tarps setup around his pen to keep him from seeing the other bull in the pasture. I think this greatly reduces the bellowing, especially at night. Having more than one bull can be an adventure, and I don’t recommend it.

Here is Beauford, the circus bull, on his way to becoming the circus steer:

Sure wish I didn’t like grain so much.

I setup the chute and put a bucket with a little scoop of grain inside, as well as some apple slices. I came back a few hours later and he had eat them, so I put a few more apple slices in and he walked right in. I clamped him down and gave him a tetanus shot. Much easier than I expected. Next step, call the vet and schedule the second step.

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arrowquip cattle cattle management colson cattle co vet work

DNA Samples w/ Colson Cattle Company

We’ve been looking for a good used head gate / squeeze chute to help with basic cattle handling tasks without a lot of luck. We needed to take some DNA samples of 3 calves to help with the registration process with the ADCA. This process requires that 30-50 pieces of hair with roots/flesh attached at the base be taken from each calf and send to the farm we bought the cows from so they could get them registered and transferred to us.

While looking around on craigslist yesterday, I noticed that a neighbor had a mobile cattle handling business – Colson Cattle Company. I went over for a visit today and this afternoon they came over and helped us get all of our DNA sampling from the 3 calves done.

It wasn’t even a minor adventure, no injuries or broken equipment — always a good thing. I don’t think the calves are too worse for wear.

Colson Cattle Company has state of the art mobile equipment from Arrowquip that made the process much easier than it could have been without it. If you’re local and need handling help, call them!