The School of Hard Shocks
I raise a few beef steers each year to keep my pasture under control and to make a few dollars for the family. My fences aren’t worthy of what I call ‘rodeo stock’ so, I must choose docile cattle. Sometimes I misjudge.
The first week or two of every newcomers stint with us is spent in a small, but secure, coral. Stretched down the center of that enclosure is an inch wide white poly-tape laced with fine wire that carries a jolt.
The poly-tape is connected to my electric fence charger. It’s the way I train new cattle to be wary of electric fences. All of my cross fencing and most of my perimeter fences are electrically charged. Lessons learned in my ‘school of hard shocks’ generally don’t need repeating. Cattle trained in my school stay in bounds until I take them away late in the fall.
Sometimes, however, my plan fails and the result is an untrained, frightened, confused, 900 pound steer that is running away from my farm. It leaves a sinking sick feeling in my gut every time I’ve watched the steak-end of a calf disappear into the distance, because I know that if I can’t wrangle them back home, it’ll mean an early trip to the butcher and a loss to me financially.
This week I brought 4 steers home. One was a little on the ‘iffy’ side of docile, but I bought him anyway thinking he’d calm down after a few days. He probably would have too, if I’d had him that long.
All went well day and night one, but the second afternoon he managed to push through a section of my corral. Wide eyed and ears standing at attention like soldiers he took a look at me, a look back at the corral and turning like a cutting horse, bolted over the hill.
In the pasture below my house I had three other calves. I hoped he would try to join them, but to get to them he would have to break through two barbed wire cross fences and a single strand of electric poly-wire like the one in the corral. In less than a minute he ripped through both those barbed-wire fences and stood thirty feet from the other calves-- only the white poly-tape stood between him and them. Beyond the tape and those calves only a smooth wired electric perimeter fence remained between him and that sick feeling in my stomach. “Lord, stop him!” I prayed.
He stopped, and I held my breath.
Hair balls hung on barbed wire in two places, but I don't believe he even noticed. Racing adrenalin blurred his judgment, until he came to that white tape. Certainly, he wanted to join those other cattle, but not at the expense of a jolt from that tape. He’d been in class only 1 day, but the lesson had been learned.
The following evening I moved the poly-tape to allow him to join the three friends, and today he’s contentedly grazing within the borders of electrically charged poly-tape. He’s content, and my stomach is feeling great too.
The lesson? Train early. If I’d have waited to train him, I’d have never trained him. So much of the fundamental principles behind training cattle are also fundamental to rearing children. Certainly there is a parallel in this story. Begin early training your children that your yes is yes and your no (the first time you say ‘no’) is N.O. period! If you fail to train them when they are still young and under your control then when they leave the corral one day, you’ll be waving goodbye for good and your own life will sour. But if you train them well from the start then later when the hormones, the peer pressure, or youthful immaturity takes them on a wild run….they’ll have some idea of when to stop— because you’ve taught them about boundaries and the consequences of crossing them.
So, go on and give your little ones (or big ones) a little ‘shock’ every now and then when they test proper limits. Be consistent. The lesson they learn will one day save their lives.
All material copyrighted by Stephen Meeks
