Culling

“ Straight into the gap in the rear of the herd they hurled themselves, slashing on every side with the aim of spreading a panic. A young bull, just in the act of whirling furiously to confront the attack, was caught full on the flank, and went down coughing, his throat torn clean out. A young cow, with one wolf snapping at her side, but failing to gain a vital spot, and another on her back, biting for her neck through the matted mane, went mad with terror, and charged straight in among the calves at the centre of the herd, making a way for the whole pack. ”

“ In order to make the agonies of the woman with the ‘evil eye’ excruciating in the last degree, dough and pin were then burnt in a fire of hazel and ash. The cure failed, as anyone acquainted with the disease might have forecast.”
Besides those remedies already mentioned for curing cattle, you may employ these:—“Take some blood from the sick animal by wounding him; let the blood fall on some straw carefully held to the place—not a drop must be lost; burn the straw; when the ill-wisher will be irresistibly drawn to the spot; then by violence you [141] can compel him to take off the spell.” ”

“ Figure 15.—Splitting hide down midline.
If a cow is being slaughtered, do not split through the center of the udder. Cut the hide around each side of the udder and remove by lifting it and cutting along the body wall. Removal of a large udder will make siding easier and prevent any fluids contained in the udder from spilling onto the meat.
Begin siding by splitting the hide on the inside of the round (fig. 16) . Starting with the cut made in removing the hindleg, cut downward to the midline split, just behind the scrotum or udder. Cut “inside out” and do not cut through the fat into the meat. ”

“ On bundles of unthreshed wheat, or on trusses of hay, were a number of writhing, groaning, bleeding forms, a few hours since in the vigour of manhood's strength, now maimed, some of them for life, some of them marked for death, and one ghastly form already cold and rigid, covered by a blood-stained sheet At one side they beheld an army surgeon with his sleeves rolled up, but, notwithstanding this precaution, smeared with blood, kneeling over a poor fellow who lay upon a truss of hay, and probing his shoulder to trace and, if possible, extract a bullet that had deeply penetrated. ”

“ Thus, let us suppose that a person endowed with the evil eye has just passed by the farmer’s herd of cattle, and a [303] calf has suddenly been seized with a serious illness, the farmer hurries after the man of the evil eye to get the dust from under his feet. If he objects, the farmer may, as has sometimes been actually done, throw him down by force, take off his shoes, and scrape off the dust adhering to their soles, and carry it back to throw over the calf. ”

“ The corrals, which stood out from the shelter of a wood bluff, were claiming attention from several cow-hands. Sounds reached her from the region of the bunkhouse, away to the right. Then at the barns, and other ranch buildings, the voices of men implied the work that was going forward in their region. Away in the distance isolated horsemen were moving about in the apparently aimless fashion of all fence riders, while, dotted about, small bands of cattle proceeded leisurely with the endless task of endeavoring to satisfy the craving of insatiable appetites. ”

“ He often slays the victims of a herd, in the wantonness of sport, merely to indulge his murderous propensities. Even when he has had a good meal he will often go on adding fresh victims, seemingly to gratify his sense of power, and his love of slaughter. In teaching her cubs to kill for themselves, the mother often displays great cruelty, frequently killing at a time five or six cows from one herd. The young savages are apt pupils, and 'try their prentice hand' on calves and weakly members of the herd, killing from the mere love of murder. ”

“ With my rifle, and one after the other my pistols, I shot three good cows, and Red Crow shot four with his bow and arrows. All seven of them fell close around the mouth of the coulee. Those that had passed out into the bottom, unhurt, ran off down the valley. The rest, back up the coulee, turned and went up on the plain, in their hurry and scrambling raising such a cloud of dust that we nearly strangled in it. We got down from the shelf and began butchering our kills, taking only the best of the meat with the hides. ”

“ The concluding paragraph requires no observation:—"When a calf is intended to be castrated, the park-keeper marks the place where it is hid, and, when the herd are at a distance, takes an assistant with him on horseback; they tie a handkerchief round the calf s mouth, to prevent its bellowing, and then perform the operation in the usual way. When any one happens to be wounded, or is grown weak and feeble through age or sickness, the rest of the herd set upon it, and gore it to death." [Pg 148]
The following engraving exhibits the effects of castration on the curvature and length of the horns. ”

“ The mighty forest giants about her bent like reeds under the terrible force, and shrieked aloud their fears at the coming of the devouring demon.
The mare rushed down into a wide hollow. A culvert bridged a reedy slough. The affrighted beast raced across it. The stream of the animal world 314 swept on about her. She breasted the steep ascent opposite, and Prudence was forced to draw rein. She dared not allow the horse to race up such an incline, even though the fire were within a quarter of a mile of her; she would have been mad to exhaust the faithful creature, which was now her only hope. ”

“ No. It was foolish to kill. Now you’ll get no more [69] cattle. There’ll be a thousand police to say so. They’ll watch for you day an’ night. They’ll never quit your trail. There’s a big bunch of cattle stole from boys who know they’ve lost ’em. And the police know that two men on that station are missing. You’ve got to quit cattle now, because you killed those boys. It was foolish.”
There was no offence in the Wolf’s manner. Only argument. And somehow the argument took hold of the cattle thief, and made him want to hear more.
“Ther’s less chance trailin’ me—now,” he said sharply. ”

“ Further, the corn-spirit in bull form is sometimes believed to be killed at threshing. At Auxerre in threshing the last bundle of corn they call out twelve times, “We are killing the Bull.” In [pg 023] the neighbourhood of Bordeaux, where a butcher kills an ox on the field immediately after the close of the reaping, it is said of the man who gives the last stroke at threshing that “he has killed the Bull.”97 At Chambéry the last sheaf is called the sheaf of the Young Ox and a race takes place to it, in which all the reapers join. ”

“ Among the means employed by these collectors are beating men with many stripes, smearing the face with cow's manure, tying men to the tree or the wall, head fixed and the eyelids stretched up and down so as to expose the eyes to the burning sun for hours at a time, have the body bent forward, place a heavy rock or log on the back until the muscles and joints give way and sometimes the blood gushes from the nose, and many other such things. The violation of personal honor and unspeakable deeds imposed upon men and women must pass silently. ”

“ CHAPTER XXIII COMMON SURGICAL OPERATIONS DEHORNING CATTLE.—It is very often necessary to remove the horns of cattle in order to prevent their injuring or worrying certain individuals in the herd. This operation is of greatest economic importance in dairy and feeding cattle. When first practised, the dehorning of mature cattle was condemned by some persons who deemed it an inhuman and unnecessary operation. It is surely a humane act to remove the horns of cattle that are confined in small yards and pastures, and prevent them from painfully, or seriously, injuring one another. ”

“ Then he took a bloody knife from between his teeth and cut an under-bit from the calf’s right ear, inquiring of the owner as he did so, “Do you want this calf left for a bull?”
“No; yearlings will be worth fourteen dollars next spring. He’s a first calf—his mother’s only a three-year-old.”
As he was released he edged away from the fire, forlorn looking. His mother coaxed him over into a corner of the corral, where he dropped exhausted, for with his bleeding ear, his seared side, and a hundred shooting pains in his loins, he felt as if he must surely die. ”

“ Culbertson 155 killed another cow, and in going to see it I had a severe fall over a partially sunken log. Bell killed a doe and wounded the fawn.
Sunday, 20th. Tamias quadrivittatus runs up trees; abundance of them in the ravine, and Harris killed one. Bell wounded an Antelope. Thousands upon thousands of Buffaloes; the roaring of these animals resembles the grunting of hogs, with a rolling sound from the throat. Mr. C. killed two cows, Sprague killed one bull, and I made two sketches of it after death. The men killed a cow, and the bull would not leave her although shot four times. ”

“ The canoe men killed a very poor cow, which had been wounded, and so left alone. The wind fell suddenly, and we proceeded on our route till noon, when it rose, and we stopped again. Mr. Culbertson went hunting, and returned having killed a young buck Elk. Dined, and walked after the meat and skin, and took the measurements. Returning, saw two Elks driven to the hills by Mr. Culbertson and Bell. Met Harris, and started a monstrous buck Elk from its couch in a bunch of willows; shot at it while running about eighty yards off, but it was not touched. ”

“ It thus covers in every particular the possession and use of suitable yards, stables, and buildings for keeping and protecting cattle and other animals, and for their slaughter. Such establishments are essential to the free and successful prosecution by any butcher of the lawful trade of preparing animal food for market. ”

“ By day their cattle hung about the corrals, cropping the grass down to the dust, or if they did wander farther afield, came galloping madly back to the smudges. For two months any kind of travel had been impossible; clouds of the pests would settle on hands, face, neck quicker than one could wipe them off. Milking and choring had to be done under cover of a thick reek to an accompaniment of lashing tails, with frequent and irritating catastrophes in the way of overturned pails. ”

“ Often it is possible to get a shot by scrutinizing carefully the last place he was seen. He can stop as suddenly as a cow pony.
[Pg 305] Often and often, like good strategic generals, we were induced by circumstances to change our plans or our method of attack at the last moment. On several occasions, while shooting in the fields of Egyptian corn, I have killed a quail with my right barrel and a duck with my left! Continually one was crouching in hopes, when some unexpected flock stooped toward him as he walked across country. ”

“ Having married the innocent woman, his first victim, he then, according to the testimony of his neighbors, hired a man to shoot his nephew, and had so become the sole owner of the whole herd of cattle, which roamed over thirty square miles of territory. ”

“ Game that has been shot in the bush or swamps and carried some distance, has to be cleaned to prevent it going bad, and the plucking has to be done after. But with the poultry killed at home it is different. The best way of killing, I consider, is by bleeding, cutting the head right off is the simplest way, and the best so long as it is not cut too near the body, and so the breast spoilt for stuffing. ”

“ On notice being given that a wild bull would be killed on a certain day, the inhabitants of the neighbourhood came mounted and armed with guns, etc., sometimes to the amount of an hundred horse, and four or five hundred foot, who stood upon walls or got into trees, while the horsemen rode off the bull from the rest of the herd till he stood at bay, when a marksman dismounted and shot. ”

“ During the process of slaughtering as much care as possible should be taken to prevent the discharge of blood or other animal matter upon the floor of the slaughter-house, upon the surrounding earth, or into an open stream. The contents of the viscera should, with the blood, offal and other garbage, be placed in impervious, covered, moveable receptacles, constructed of galvanized iron or other non-absorbent material, and removed from the premises without undue delay. ”

“ The herdsmen shall receive a beating, but the cattle-owner be punished by fine, as before mentioned.
162. No guilt attaches [250] [to the cattle-owner,] if the field [251] be close to the public road, or to the village pasture lands, [252] and he do not intend [the trespass] ; if he do intend it, then he incurs punishment as a thief.
163. A bull, cattle permitted to be at large, [253] a cow that has recently calved, estrays, [254] and the like, [255] having no keeper or brought there by accident or by act of the monarch, shall be let go free. ”

“ While the killing of large animals presents greater difficulties than the killing of small ones, such as sheep, pigs, and calves, it is with respect to the latter that the discovery of a painless system is most imperatively required. Unfortunately, from the ease with which the smaller animals can he handled, butchers have concluded that it does not much matter how they are despatched, so long as the affair is finished with reasonable quickness. ”

“ When a dehorned or polled animal is to be slaughtered it will of course be necessary to put the noose around the neck. Attach an ordinary pulley to a post or tree close to the ground, to the barn floor or sill, pass the rope through it and draw the animal’s head down as close to the pulley as possible. ”

“ At last, they sought instruction from a learned man in the place. He advised them to collect a herd of cattle in a fold, wherever she would stand still, and whenever she heard the lowing of the cattle she would descend, and when she was within gun-shot they were to fire at her with a silver bullet, when she would become a faggot of bones. ”