28 June
2022
Testing Bulls
Do you really need to ask what they are being tested for? Things need to work. If they don’t work the bulls can’t work. Getting things tested every spring is the best way to be sure you end up with bred cows.
The bulls were in already when I got out there. I had kids to get up and going, breakfast to eat, a husband to see out the door. Things to do first. So they were already up here and causing trouble when I got out.
A bull is usually a basically nice creature. Big, calm, and slow moving. Usually.
A bunch of bulls are dangerous creatures who move too fast to get away from easily and happily destroy whole fence lines without even noticing they were in the way.
Now this bunch of bulls was in the corrals behind the house, waiting to be loaded, together, onto the trailer, happily fighting and trying to destroy anything they got near. Having run together all winter in no way meant they had any pecking orders settled and were ready to get along.
They were not all going into any trailers together.
With care and caution the two yearling bulls and one big quiet bull were separated and put into the bottom of the semi trailer. One big aggressive bull, we called him cauliflower ears for ease of recognition, was sorted out and put by himself to load on the horse trailer next. Space between these guys might save the trailers from being destroyed.
I went to bring the trailer down. As I backed to the chute I saw a bull behind me. One of those things your eyes see but your brain can’t quite process. The screaming and arm waving, at the bull, not me, done by my father in law finally got through and I jumped out to help get him back in a corral.
I still couldn’t process how he had gotten out. Until the father in law grumbled something about being followed out a gate he left open behind him when he went through.
Back to sorting.
Staying out of the way as two bulls crash into each other and plow about in the tight confines of the corrals is always fun. We got a couple more out. One for each compartment on the top of the semi trailer, one for the back, and two on the horse trailer. One compartment each.
Unloading at the vet clinic they asked, with some slight mockery, did we haul each bull separately?!?! Yes, yes we did. We like our trailers thank you very much.
I ended up crawling inside the bottom of the semi, trying to convince the bulls they needed to come out. It’s a bit short and they rub their backs getting in and out. They did not want out. Those three bulls were so nice and quiet. It was good to have some that way.
After finally getting everything off the trailer. I was struggling with a gate latch. Hearing a commotion I looked up. The vet tech was running past me, as fast and hard as she could. Right in front of my nose, on the other side of a panel. A foot behind her, no exaggeration, was one of the bulls running as hard as he could. Directly behind him was a second bull. Apparently the tougher of the two. He was going to get that first bull. The first bull was going to smash the vet tech simple because she was in front of him as he escaped.
Luckily she escaped. Jumped over the panel at the end of the lane. nearly cleared it flat footed. The bulls apparently stopped then. The fence didn’t come down because they didn’t crash into it. I was too busy trying to breath again to remember what happened except that no one died.
No one made fun of us for hauling all the bulls separately again either. A separate pen was found for each individual bull. Apparently the vet was as fond of her facilities as we are of the trailers.
