The Full Bull Story

This actually happened on Sept 1st.  I started this on Sept 2nd, but have had in draft since then.  LOL  In the intervening time I have forgotten quite a few details....maybe on purpose!  Haha

To begin with let me just say that  in the almost-13 years I have been on the dairy,  I have had minimal trouble with any of our bulls, and have only been in dangerous situations a couple of times.  All of those times were up the road in the heifer/bull pasture where we take the open heifers to be bred for the first time, and Gary was always with me.

 (Hi! I'm Ellen :P ) (Um, this is what happens when you walk away from your blog for a moment.)


Yesterday however I was on my own.

Last year I went into the heifer/bull without hesitation as the bull was quite docile, minded his manners, and stayed with his ladies.  We were in and out of the multiple times from Nov through Feb; feeding, getting calves and cows...etc.  He didn't make a moo about it.



All summer however I had been going in the side "keyhole" access gate that goes directly into the corral, instead of taking the 4-wheeler through the big gate into the pasture.

Then yesterday I had to catch him because unfortunately his number was up to be culled.  So I thought, erroneously, that it'd be easier to catch him by going inside the enclosure, so I could nip out the gate after I closed it behind them.

Didn't work.

Soon as I went in to the pasture he saw me and came after me, chased me around a bit, with me screaming.  AAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!

Then I threw a bucket at him which distracted him a bit until I got to the corral.  Then I grabbed the bucket of feed, tossed that toward him (as well as I could with 30 lbs of feed in it) and got to the corral.

He displayed a bit, moaned and groaned at me a bit, but I chased him away from the bucket, got the feed, or what was left, into the bunks and got him caught.

It was rather hair-raising.  He wasn't actually attacking me, per se, he was just excited about getting his breakfast.  But when an animal weighing almost a ton gets excited and shows that excitement by butting at you or your 4-wheeler, things can get out of control.    He could easily have flipped the 4-wheeler.

At any rate.  He's hamburger now and I am still around, undamaged.  So all is well.

(Thankful: thankful that God is good!  I am still alive.  Life is good!)

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Oyster

It isn't even halfway through the month yet and I have run out of lists or anything amusing to tell you about the dairy. So here is a poem I picked up on a homesteading forum. It does deal with ag issues, just of a different sort... Enjoy! The Oyster Baxter Black The sign upon the café wall said OYSTERS: fifty cents. "How quaint," the blue-eyed sweetheart said with some bewildermence, "I didn't know they served such fare out here upon the plain." "Oh, sure," her cowboy date replied, "We're really quite urbane." "I would guess they're Chesapeake or Blue Point, don't you think?" "No ma'am, they're mostly Hereford cross . . . and usually they're pink But I've been cold, so cold myself, what you say could be true And if a man looked close enough, their points could sure be blue!" She said, "I gather them myself out on the bay alone. I pluck them from the murky depths and smash them with a
Read more

Like Cats A'Fightin'

Image
That's a local saying when it's snowing hard. Snowing like cats a'fightin'. You can look out and see the fur flying. Ellen had never been outside while it was actually snowing. She was enchanted. She had to have a bucket of it to carry around. It was in the mid-20s but we took a bit of a walk before coming back in for a nap. The snow is still too dry to be able to make a snowman, it is really powdery. So far we have somewhere between 3 and 4 inches, I would suspect.
Read more

The Blind Calf Story

Image
This happened last month. I thought it was an interesting case. Wed Aug 15th 2007 8:30 AM: Went out and brought new heifer calf and cow in from field. Not too sure how old calf was; umbilical cord sort of dried up, but calf still seemed damp. Left her with cow all morning ‘til maybe early afternoon, then separated them. Beautiful, normal calf. 6 PM Fed calf bottle. She slugged back the whole thing. Thurs Aug 16th5:15 AM (approx) Calf comatose. Or as near as I could tell. She was on her side, non-responsive, drooling, head on ground, eyes closed or just barely opened. I tried to feed her bottle but she only swallowed convulsively once or twice, then milk just drained from her mouth. 5:30 AM. Husband went out and looked at her. Drug her out of pen and out of the way to be taken to boneyard later after chores were all done. She was barely breathing and as I said, totally non-responsive.This was a real grief as the cow she came from is a great milker and to get a heifer from her was a joy.
Read more