Thoughts from the Middle of Nowhere

Reading Karen's story about the tied up bull reminded me of one of my bull wreck stories. Sometimes these critters get in the biggest predicaments. I know I'm not a very good story teller but bear with me.

It was many, many, many moons ago and I believe I had gotten the bulls in to pour them in the fall. We got them poured all right, not having a chute they would fit in you don't want to know how I poured them, it isn't exactly safe, we were taking them back out to their pasture when the wreck occurred.

There was a round bale feeder sitting in the pasture which this bull decided to investigate. Now this feeder has parallel bars going up at about a 45 degree angle and the bars are about 2 feet apart. It is built in three sections and where the sections meet is a bar that goes straight up and down. Therefore at three different spots on the feeder there is an opening that is 2 feet wide at the bottom but narrows to a point at the top instead of maintaining the width all the way to the top. Well guess where this brilliant bull put his head in the feeder? At one of these spots. What happened when he decided there was nothing in the feeder and lifted his head up and went to back up?

You got it, he wedged his neck in and was stuck. He got a little upset at this point and started really pulling back to get out. Two thousand pound bull vs. 200 pound round bale feeder. Yup, he started backing up and pulling the feeder along with him. This was more than my horse could handle, he knew that feeder should not be moving so he sucked his tail down tight, reared and turned, and decided to go visit the far side of the pasture. It took me a little bit to get him under control and not trying to run away, but there was no way he was going near that bull and feeder that was still moving around all over the place.

Now I have had this happen before to cows with these feeders and all I had to do was get in the feeder and stand on the cows head to push it down until she could get it out. They usually only go no more than 900 pounds at the time and were not pulling the feeder around. One look at this 2000 pound bull and I knew this solution wasn't going to work here. I did not weigh enough to be able to push his head down even if I could get a steady enough platform to work on, with him moving it around, there was no way I could make it happen.

So I studied the situation a little bit closer and come up with a solution finally. Since the opening at the bottom was larger than the opening at the top where the bull by lifting his head was trapped, if I turned the feeder over the larger opening would now be at the top where the bull could pull his head out real easy. I got off my horse and threw my reins to the hired hand and started chasing after the bull/feeder combination to attempt to turn it over. I yelled at the hired hand to tie the horses up and come help me.

I finally get up to the bull/feeder combination and the bull is getting a little owly at this point. I get my fingers under the edge of the feeder and start to lift it up to try to turn it over. The bull is throwing his head up trying to get it off and is not helping me at all since with his help I am having to lift it higher and higher all while walking along as the bull is backing up. I yell at the hired hand to get over and help me all the while trying to flip the feeder over. All of a sudden the bull drops his head which gives me enough leverage to push the feeder all the way to a standing position. I then managed to get my fingers under the edge again and finished flipping the feeder over.

The bull at this point lifts his head up to the top of the now full sized opening and backs out. He then calmly turns away and walks off after the other bulls who by now are in their home pasture. I looked around and spotted the hired hand and asked him why he didn't get in and help me when i was trying to flip the feeder over. He said that he had no idea what I was trying to do since I didn't tell him, which was true, and he figured one of us had better stay away from the wreck so they could haul the one that got hurt to the hospital. All I could do was laugh. I couldn't blame him for not helping me, he had no idea what I was up to. I guess I need to communicate better sometimes.

The predicaments these critters get into sometimes are amazing. The risks people take to get them out of these wrecks are also amazing. What I did might have been stupid, but what choice did I have? I had to get the bull out of the situation.

Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go. T. S. Eliot

I found this story over at Northview Diary and it reminded me of a similar story of my own.

One day many moons ago I was moving a cow with a 4-5 day old calf from one pasture to another. The pair was running along in front of me and disappeared over a slight hill in front of me. When I crested the hill there was the cow running down the fence but no calf in sight. I galloped down to turn the cow since I didn't want her going out the gate with out her calf and then tried to figure out what happened to the calf.

After I turned the cow she realized there was no calf with her and started looking for her calf too. We finally found the calf down a large hole I didn't know was there just over the rise of the hill. The hole was so deep it was all I could do to reach down and get a hold of the calf and pull him out. The mama cow was not real sure about me messing with her baby but she left me alone while I worked on the situation. When I started to lift the calf out of the hole the horse I had thought the devil himself was rising out of the ground and left the country. Strange things like this sometimes spook horses pretty bad. Luckily all this happened within a half mile of the corral so it was a pretty short walk to get my horse again. It was quite an experience I will tell, you. I did manage to get the cow out when all was said and done.

If you've heard this story before, don't stop me, because I'd like to hear it again. Groucho Marx

P.S. I left the story in the comments over at Northview Diary but decided I wanted to record it here too.