Soule: One Rule For Calves (and People) That Will Surprise You

Training calves is a lot like training children. Both have short attention spans, and both would rather play than work, as I discovered at the 2024 Miles Smith Farm camp.
Molly Potter and Rose DeFreitas met several years ago at farm camp, where they bonded over a shared love of bovines. Molly grew up on a small cattle farm. For Rose, camp was her first encounter with training a calf.
Now they are 16 and 17, they've built on that friendship — and on that love of cattle.
Every week, through snow, sleet, hail, and brutal summer heat, they show up at my farm to train four of my calves. In the beginning I helped them teach the calves voice commands: "Gee" for right, "Haw" for left. The rest of the time they just hung out with their calves and taught them to run (the calves already had that one figured out) and to lie down on command.
At first Rose was timid with her rambunctious Jersey-cross pair. A successful trainer has to know what she wants before she opens her mouth — a calf can hear hesitation. I've spent years teaching cattle to work in a yoke, but it was Molly who found the words.
"Give the command like they owe you money," Molly said.

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4-H leader Carole Soule co-owns Miles Smith Farm, where you can visit her cattle on Saturday, August 29 from 1 to 3 p.m. Adults are $20. Children are free. Click Here To Register