TOWNER, N.D. -- I never was tempted to go to school to be an engineer, but I remember kind of liking the sampling of physics I was exposed to in high school. There were laws that could not be denied. A way things were supposed to work.
Somehow, our ranch seems to exist in a third dimension, where the usual laws always work against you, but never for you.
Last week, we got the kids farmed out to others so my wife and I could do a little cattle work. We brought in the calves to boost their vaccinations and apply a little pour-on dewormer. We were just about done when it was time for my wife to go pick up the kids from preschool and day care.
I told her I could finish the last few by myself. She was barely to the end of the driveway when I was in full crisis mode with one of the very next calves to hit the chute.
My chute has a little door on each side to give you access to the neck of the cattle for vaccinations and injections. Open the door, give the shot, shut the door.
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Sometimes you don't get the little door shut.
I had two calves come in the chute. One stuck his head in the headgate, the other stuck his head through that little neck door that I didn't shut. I quick vaccinated the one in the headgate so I could get him out and do something with the knucklehead that stuck his head through that little door.
Hairy Houdini, almost
The one calf went out the chute, the other calf, a 550-pound bovine contortionist escape artist, somehow pushed his 15-inch-wide shoulders and rib cage through that 8- or 10-inch door until he hung up on his 15-inch-wide hips. In the world of physical laws, old Sir Isaac Newton would apply his three laws of motion and explain this unsatisfactory situation with terms such as acceleration, force and mass.
The calf started bellering and jumping up and down. I started bellering and jumping up and down. Eventually, all the bellering and jumping wore us both out and we took a little breather.
The calf was stuck, stuck, stuck. His hips weren't coming out forward and he wasn't going to pop his rib cage and shoulders backward. I couldn't get him to repeat the acceleration and force he'd applied to his mass a little earlier.
Chute depreciation
I needed a trump card to overcome the physics. I don't know what Sir Isaac would've done, but I went and got the acetylene cutting torch. I gave it some critical thought. The price of calves was going down. The price of steel squeeze chutes was going up. I think I paid $2,500 for the chute years ago; the calf might fetch a little better than $500.
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Eventually, compassion overruled economics and I decided the torch was the only chance to save the calf before he gave up. I made three strategic cuts without barbecuing the critter I was saving. I took the steel I had dismantled and put it in the spare parts pile to be reattached another day.
When the torch made its last cut, the calf sprung out of there like a rocket. If only he'd have had that kind of reverse acceleration to remedy our predicament before I had to turn part of my chute into scrap iron.
Maybe next time, the laws of motion and physics will work in my favor. Or, maybe I'll just remember to shut that little door.
