OT...cattle dart guns

Who uses them? Thinking I could use one to treat for pink eye and such.

Seen a couple different brands. Cap-Chur and Pneu dart seem to be the main ones.

Seen pump up types, co2 cartridge, and 22 blank. Disposable and reuseable syringes.

I'm small time...40 cows with calves.

Somebody on here is bound to use one...I can't be the only guy who's gotten to slow to catch calves in the field. Mature cows aren't much of a problem, I can call them up for feed and catch them. Calves........

Kinda balking at the $700 or so between the gun, cartridges, darts, etc., but as a friend pointed out that's only a calf or two.

Appreciate your thoughts

My vet gave me a spray bottle , purple coloured liquid for pink eye. I would bring cows and calves into the cattle shed and give them some feed, then I would walk down the row and spray their eyes before they could back out of the manger , That stuff worked pretty well, can't recall the name of it.

A good 4-wheeler has a lot more uses outside of catching calves, and is a lot more fun.

I had the crossbow one that you pumped up with air. Do not remember the brand name or if they still make them. I used La 300 for pinkeye and hoof rot . For the calves it worked good but for the cows you had to get them twice to get enough medicine in them and it was tough to get close enough for the second dose. I guess you could use some higher priced medicine that wouldnt take as much dosage but I never did. They are kind of dangerous to use so you wanted to be careful.

Biggest problem I have with that is while the momma cows are always ready to come in for feed, the calves may or may not come in.

They'll balk at the gate, and it seems the one I want is one of them that will balk.

One is on my list for treating both cows and calves. My cows do not like poeple and are very hard to handle. My son worked at a 1000 head feedlot and they used them when there was only one or two in a pen of 100 that needed treatment. Tom

My thought was I'd shoot them while on the 4 wheeler or side by side.

The cows always cluster around the vehicles, cause they figure I'm moving them to fresh grass.

As far as jumping off and grabbing a calf...too old, fat and slow with for that any more.

Any idea what brand/type they used?

Have never used one but with my small herd, my son has used one several times and two other sons use them frequently. Don't know what style or brand they use.

Putting them all through the chute would be about as easy and you can look at all of them so it don't spread from one to the other that way. We always used a drop of combiotic on the eye for pink eye would only take about 2 treatments and they were fine. Put a few CC's in a syringe then remove needle to dispense. One drop is all it takes and no fooling around with puffer bottles that only work half the time and waste the other half. An old Dairy man Vet told us about the combiotic thing 50 years ago. He asked why we were messing with those puffer bottles and all the hassle they were when we could do it the other way with the drop on the eye.

I don't know anything about them except I went to a sale once that they used them there. The darts were laying everywhere to step on and little kids were picking them up. I don't particularly like the idea of those things laying everywhere. Another thing I don't think I would like is the cattle will start getting spooked every time they see you coming.

I got one and it works good it uses 22 blanks. In my opinion if you are going to be close in get a pneumatic one the 22 hits to hard if close. Happy hunting

My thought is shooting out in the field what needs to be shot.
If I had a bad outbreak, I'd call them all up and run them through the chute.
But thats usually not the case...just one or 2 need treated.
And I doubt my cows will get too spooky on me...theyre too well trained to what a 5 gallon bucket means...FEED!
And I somewhat rotational graze, cows get moved every few days, so theyre used to me.
Even when we run them all through the chute for tagging, vaccinating, worming, theyll come in the next day for feed...which is why I grain them the next day, keep them used to coming up when I call

My great uncle would feed his cows in the pen which had a smaller second pen in the back then the Shute.he would push them into the second pen to feed them then close the separating gate leaving the outside gate open.around feeding time those calves would come around looking for momma or not nurse.it didnt take but two or three times to get them all coming in then just close the gate. Then always always always let them out through the Shute so they know thats the way out and makes it easier when it comes to doctoring them up

I would think that after a couple of shots your cows will begin to shy away from you and the thing will be useless. Better to bring them into the corral randomly with a bucket of feed than have them run from you fearing getting shot at.

Medi Dart is the brand of the one I have.

It comes with a crossbow to shoot it, they also make a version that goes on the end of a long pole.

I think it holds about 30 cc, you fill the syringe on the end, screw it onto the arrow that has a built in air chamber then use a hand pump to charge the air chamber.

When everything works right, on contact with the animal as the needle penetrates the hide it pushes back a release arm and the air charge moves the plunger forward to inject the medicine.
When it reaches the end of its travel it pushes the release arm forward and the arrow/syringe drops to the ground.

Often I would just walk up to a cow out on pasture and poke it by hand.
Our cows were quiet enough that it worked fine the first time you treated them.
If you had to treat the same cow a second time you needed to use the crossbow as by then they learned what that orange poky thing in your hand was and would try to avoid you.

Way more convenient than trying to bring them all back a mile or two to the handling facilities to treat one or two.

Probably only used it a couple of dozen times in the 15 years I have had it but it definitely was money well spent.