The South Dakota Cowgirl

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Porcupine Quills

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These calves let curiosity get the better of them, and they ended up with porcupine quills in their noses.

Her, we’ve seen before.

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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.

About ~The South Dakota Cowgirl~

Jenn Zeller is the creative mind and boss lady behind The South Dakota Cowgirl. She is an aspiring horsewoman, photographer, brilliant social media strategist and lover of all things western.

After a brief career in the investment world to support her horse habit (and satisfy her mother, who told her she had to have a “real” job after graduating college), she finally took the leap and stepped away from a regular income; trading the business suit once and for all for cowgirl boots, a hat, and jeans. She has not looked back.

When Jenn first moved to The DX Ranch on the South Dakota plains, she never imagined she’d find herself behind a camera lens capturing an authentic perspective of ranching, and sharing it with others. Jenn has always been called to artistry, and uses music, writing, images, home improvement, and her first true love of horses to express her ranching passion.

Horses are the constant thread and much of her work centers around using her unique style of writing to share her horsemanship journey with others in publications such as CavvySavvy, the AQHA Ranching Blog, the West River Eagle, the family ranch website, and her own website.

Using photography to illustrate her stories has created other opportunities -- Jenn’s brand “The South Dakota Cowgirl” has grown to the level of social media “Influencer”. This notoriety has led to work with Duluth Trading Company, Budweiser, Wyoming Tourism, Vice, Circle Z Ranch and Art of the Cowgirl, to name a few. She also serves as a brand ambassador for Woodchuck USA, Arenus Equine Health, Triple Crown Feed and Just Strong fitness apparel. Her photography has been featured by Instagram, Apple, TIME Magazine, The Huffington Post, and Oprah Magazine. Jenn’s work has been published internationally, has been seen in several books and has graced the covers of several magazines.

Jenn became a social media influencer by accident when she started to explore Instagram as a way to share her life on the ranch with folks that don’t get to experience it. It’s grown into an incredible platform that she uses to empower women, create an environment for self improvement and share life on the ranch.

When she’s not working, she loves to drink coffee, play with her naughty border collie named Copper, start ranch colts, and run about the country chasing cans. Her mother still thinks she doesn’t have a “real” job.

Give your horse or dog, or cat the gift of mobility.

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Comments

  3. nicole says

    how dos a cow get quill i see dogs all the time but ot cows thats crazy there one dog the bullterr, that has 1400 quills in her face i look at at picture and would love to take a good piler to her face love to pull them all out or combo the out take a com and ull down her face t get them out for her..

    Reply

  4. nikkie says

    how hard is to pull the quills out there was these guy who comes in my bar he took the dog campping fr the week end and the dog took off in the woods well came back 20 mins later full of quills wene i say full he was full and to far to drive back so he tryed pulling them ut with pillers the dog tryed bitting him it ws bleeding so bad he said so me put a muzz on the dog but he had about 500 quills in his face nose mout well he pulled the ones on his head now its time to take the quills out in his face but the muzz on them so he had to take it off …well the muzz push on all the quills in his face and broke in his skin it was so bad he take the dog to the vet the muzz made a big mess of things the vet said it broke about 300 qills in his face it took 4 hour to get them out the muzz pushing the ones in his mouth it was bleeding all over the place poor dog its better now that god but never put a muzz over ,quills

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  5. Julie says

    If it’s not effecting the cows eating, if we don’t pull them out, will they eventually fall out on their own? I know if you cut off the end before you pull then out they come out easy. But the steer we have isn’t very tame and we don’t have a chute to hold him and I don’t know if he’ll let me get that close, as I’ve just last week gotten him to eat grain from the scoop in my hand.

    Reply

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