2020 - Volume #44, Issue #5, Page #19
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He Herds Cattle With Leaf Blower
After years of raising chickens and cattle, John McAnear, 95 of Freer, Texas, has figured out a few handy herding tricks using a water bottle and leaf blower. The leaf blower was first discovered when a possum took up residence in a storeroom behind his garage.
“It growled and hissed pretty bad. My dog wouldn’t go in there, and my son couldn’t see in there so he didn’t want to go in,” McAnear recalls. “I saw a leaf blower and stuck it in the cracks of the wall and turned it on. That possum shot out of there pretty quick.”
The blower has also worked well for chasing rodents out of walls and flower beds.
But the most useful trick is to use it for herding cattle, he notes, but not on full power.
“Use a blower and turn it off and on quickly (directed on both sides) to control animals in a stockyard. Use it gently,” he suggests.
For herding chickens and goats, he recommends a regular water bottle with a little hole poked in the lid.
“Don’t squirt water on them, but squirt water on one side, then the other,” he says. They will move to avoid water. If you run out of water, just crinkling the bottle from side to side may be enough to control the chickens, goats or other livestock, he adds.
“The main thing is when working cattle, chickens, dogs or whatever, you can’t rush. Go slow at an even pace so you don’t excite the animals,” he emphasizes.
Contact: FARM SHOW Followup, John McAnear, P.O. Box 600, Freer, Texas 78357 (ph 361 394-7170).
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