These calves let curiosity get the better of them, and they ended up with porcupine quills in their noses.
Her, we’ve seen before.
But this girl, we haven’t. And she gets to be the calf to demonstrate the process. Lucky her.
We ran the calf (not physcially ran her of course) but that’s the term we use, down the chute, into what’s called a squeeze chute. And it is just that. It can be adjusted to hold the cow/calf still, so that if you’re preg checking, or pulling quills out of the calf’s nose it can essentially immobilize them. We also catch their head in what’s called a “head gate”, and that just keeps them from being able to back out and makes it easier for whoever is working on their face, if you were cutting off horns or draining an abscessed tooth, or what have you.
A good pair of pliers and a strong hand are all you need.
Sometimes their noses bleed when you pull those bad boys out.
This particular calf was very quiet and nice, once she realized we were making her nose feel better. And people think animals are dumb!
Zach’s youngest brother Bud, was going the pulling.
While Zach pointed out a broken quill he missed.
And with that photo, my camera battery died.
It’s not just calves that get porcupine quills in them. It’s dogs and horses too. And it happens at least once a year to some critter on the place. You’d think they’d never do it twice, but sometimes the dogs at least, never learn.
This post is my Macro Monday post for this week. For more Macro Shots, be sure to visit Sunday Stills.
