Hey

This is a bit of topic, but I work on a farm this winter. I mostly work with sled dogs but I also do other farmwork, like slaughtering.

We were going to slaughter a big ram. And the father of the man I work for was going to do the shooting. He was going to use a 22Lr slaughtermask. You know a short, smooth barrel that you place on the animal�s heads and then knock it with a wooden hammer to fire it.

He had two sorts of ammo, one was CCI Stinger and I don�t remember the other type, bouth hollowpoints. After some discussion we came to that the stinger had most force because they where faster. Dumb conclusion.

He put the mask on the ram. Right on the middle of the head, between the ears and eyes. We where holding the ram.
He fired. The ram started to bleed a bit from his nose and he looked a bit shaky at first. He soon recovered. He got a round black burned spot on his head. I was laughing my brains out.
The father swore a lot and went over to his bag with slaughtering gear and took out the 9mm slaughtering mask. This time with ammo meant for big bulls. After some fiddling and loading the new mask (Remember we where standing trying to hold this big ram that just had taken a shot to the head without much trouble), he was ready for a new shot. He puts the mask on the same spot a shots.

The ram goes down

On his knees that is. And he started to bleed under his head. The shot probably when trough, missing the brain. But the ram wasn�t down yet. He got up.
I could not help laughing. And now he had to load the mask a gain. And it takes a bit of time loading this mask. As you can understand the ram was getting pretty suspicious at us and wasn�t so calm. I learned some new word during the loading process.

Again the mask was put on him and this time he went down like a sack of potatoes.

So the morals is don�t use 22Lr high-speed hollowpoints when you are slaughtering a big ram.

We slaughter bull 2 weeks later, it went down on the first shot. (With the 9mm)

Good eating and happy hunting.

Johan

[ 01-05-2003, 05:46: Message edited by: 308winchester ]

As a youngster one of our chores was to help slaughtering our meat, be it pork, beef or whatever.
My job always seemed to be coaxing the animal to the slaughter slab with a bucket of feed.
Dad always used a .22 rifle loaded with lrhp's and would put the muzzle right behind the animals ear pointing towards the front of the opposite ear.
I can't recall him ever having to shoot more than once on anything, even on Hammerhead, the biggest, baddest, meanest bull to ever walk the face of the earth.

I just use a plain old 22 rifle or pistol. I have shot 1000 lb plus steers with them you hit them right they die real fast mess up they just look at you. shot placement is what it is about.

My father was born and raised on a farm in southern Indiana. When he was a kid in the early 1920s shooting marbles with his brother, his dad walked over, picked out one of his best "shooters", and headed for the barn. He ran it in his muzzleloader and dispatched the hog they were going to have for the holidays.

The only part that bothered my father was that he thought he was going to get his "shooter" back.

308winchester: My close friends here in SW Montana raise Fox, Coyotes, Bobcats, Ferrets and Raccoons in an animal farm. They collect large dead creatures from roadsides and from ranches to salvage the meat and organs as animal feed. Often they get a call from ranchers in the area to come out and kill a sick cow or horse and they can salvage the meat. Usually the husband is home to drive the pickup out to the ranch and slaughter the animal and load it in the pickup to take back to the fur farm. Two years ago though the husband was away and the wife gets a call to go slaughter and remove a sickly Black Angus bull! They needed the meat for feed and as it was only a few miles away and the husband would be home in a couple of days to process the bull the wife decides to take on the responsibility. She gets the 22 Rifle 11 shells and heads for the ranch. She shoots the bull in the "forehead" and the bull drops. A ranch hand loads the bull in the back of the pickup wwith a front loader and away my friend goes down the highway toward her farm. You all guessed it - I am sure. The bull revives in the back of the pickup and does damage to the truck before bailing out and onto the highway! The staggering bull is shot 10 more times witout lethal effect! My lady friend went into a frantic state as the bull is staggering around on the pavement and traffic is endangered! No bullets and no idea what to do - but fortunately we are talking Montana here and its not long before an armed Montanan comes along and dispatches the bull with a high powered Rifle! The creature is drug to the side of the road and my friend returns to the ranch from which it came. She recruits the hand to drive the front loader down the highway to the bull and they reload the creature into the pickup solving the dilemna.
My friend states she will never try to bring home a cow again without the husband being along. The crux of her problem was in the past she had not witnessed the placement of the headshots the husband used to dispatch large animals and she was under the impression that the forehead between the ears was the spot to shoot the animal. That might have worked on a less mature animal but this bulls head was apparently to thick.
Yes we should all want to humanely kill the animals we Hunt and harvest but it does not always happen. Lets all strive to do our best though out of respect for our sport and the animal.
Hold into the wind
VarmintGuy

[ 01-05-2003, 22:39: Message edited by: VarmintGuy ]

These are some great stories, I am sitting here laughing!

We had a spooky steer, and it would run whenever the slaughter truck came around. So, I did the deed with dad's 30/30. Made an 'x' between the eyes and ears, and let him have it from 15 feet, expecting the straight drop the slaughter guy usually gets with his 22 mag rifle. No dice. The sucker turns around 270 degrees, walks about two steps, and stands there with his head cocked to the side slightly (ouch!). After crapping my pants, I let him have it behind the ear. Down he goes. Moral - aim higher than you think. I hit sinuses.

-JV

I have killed a lot of big hogs over the years with my little springfield single shot 22LR. Never had a problem. Put it right up to the head and no discussion. Ive have seen a friend of mine use his 22 LR pistol and it fail though. We used to butcher 30 or 40 hogs at a time usually around thanksgiving.

Remember a ram is made for head butting, and there is almost only bone.(Small brain) The .22 didn't even go trough the skin.

Johan

When I was in school the farm next to us had a butchery on it. One day they drive over and ask me if I can come and kill 2 cows because the father is not there and the lady tried shooting the cow but after 10 shots the cow still did not go down, I killed both with my fathers 303.

I have in the past shot a Kudu cow in the nec with the .22 and it killed her clean. But I won't recomend it to anybody.

In January of 2001 I went on a South Dakota Bison hunt (shoot) with a friend of mine. Since I was going to Africa in June, I decided to take my .375 H&H for a test run. Since the animals were to be butchered for commercial sale, we were instructed by our guide to shoot the bulls approx. 1" below the ear hole. I shot my bull from about 75 yards with a 285 gr. grand slam. At the shot the bull swung his head, and then went back to feeding. I couldn't beleive that anything could take a 285 gr. 375H&H to the side of the head and not even be staggered! A second shot finished the bull, and upon inspection I found that my elevation was fine but I was about 2" too far forward with the first shot. When my taxidermist removed the skull plate, he found the bullet about 1" above the entry hole. It had encircled the skull in the "honeycomb" type material that I assume is natures shock absorber. To this day I still can't believe that the Bison showed almost no reaction to the shot.

BOWHUNR