Campbell
The first bull we borrowed was Campbell. We thought we were rather green and clueless until we met the people we were picking him up from.
Hubby had torn his calf muscle playing touch rugby the night before, he was okay to drive (and back a horse float which I can't do) but was hopeless on his feet. We got to the place to pick him up and beat the owners there. There isn't a house on their land, they live in town, but they arrived about 15 minutes after we did. With all four children. Including a baby in a front pack. The older three children ranging up to about 7 years were terrified of all their animals and screamed a lot.
Campbell was still running in the same paddock with two cows, a steer, several sheep and llamas. So our first mission was to separate him, which he wasn't happy about. They had half built yards, but they certainly weren't ready for the cattle so the screaming children went into them with their mother and the baby.
Then we had to try to get him into the float. This is a double horse float sitting in a wide open paddock. Not even a lane to narrow it down and an unhappy bull who has just been separated from his herd.
Eventually the guy got a roll of electric fencing wire and some standards and we started to string a line across the paddock. I understand zapping yourself on the hot wire the first time, but not every time you get within a metre of it like he did. He also had tall standards and put the wire on the top notch, so Campbell was able to duck under it where the paddock dipped and we had to start again from scratch. He tried to lead him with a handful of hay, but as soon as Campbell came for a mouthful, he dropped all of it so Campbell stopped where he was and ate all the hay.
This guy had no idea of how to manage cattle, how to drive him, how to string a hot wire or how to keep himself safe. It was two parts comical to one part ... I don't quite know what word I'm looking for here, it made us feel that we weren't so bad after all, but also quite concerned for him long term. It was like watching one of those dreadful slapstick comedies, where you spend most of your time cringing, uncomfortable and embarrassed for the main character but you can't help laughing a little at some of the pratfalls.
So there was this guy, Hubby trying to limp around slowly and me doing most of the leg work. I restrung the hot wire, drove him from the other side and got him down towards the float. All it took after that was a bit of hay tossed into the float and he went in nicely. An hour and a half after we'd arrived.
We got him home and he entertained the girls for a couple of days. Then the neighbours bulls broke through the floodgate - I wrote about it here.
When it came time for him to leave, the lady coming to pick him up delayed it for a couple of months and then he really didn't want to go on the float she brought. It took an hour or so to get him on the float. We had him penned, he didn't have any other space to go elsewhere, he just wouldn't quite commit to the ramp, even with hay.
Monroe
The next bull was Monroe. Picking him up was a piece of cake. He went beautifully onto the float, travelled nicely and seemed to have lovely manners to begin with.
Then I figure he must have done his job and gotten bored. He managed to get himself under a deer fence into the shelter belt and then over the gate at the end to fight with the biggest of the three angus steers I had at the time - who was also the one I was grazing for a friend.
I've seen dominance fights between bulls before, having had several different herds of bulls next door with all their political maneuvering and constantly changing hierarchies. This wasn't like that, this was to the death. Neither bull belonged to us and I was worried about having to inform one or both owners that their animals had died in my care. It wasn't safe to go near them, they had no awareness of anything around them except for each other. I rang the neighbour in a panic, I had no idea what to do and there were four more steers in that paddock getting all excited and wound up by the fight.
The neighbour came over on his four wheeled farm bike, he ran around and around them making a lot of noise until they were more worried about him than each other and then we were able to drive them in separate directions.
A week later he was heading off to his next visit. The lady picking him up arrived at about 9am on a weekday when there was just me at home. The horse float she had hired was a single width one which made it too narrow to effectively block the lane although that came later. First of all, she couldn't back a trailer. Secondly, her car was too low to make it over the high verge on the edge of the road so she couldn't straighten up to go into the gate that way.
Because the float seemed light, we unhitched it and tried to push it through the gate by hand. We couldn't get it up over the high cut verge. We were now blocking the road too.
Luckily for us, a lovely couple were passing who clearly had a lot of experience working together with floats or trailers. He backed up to the float hitch, she stood in the middle and with very simple signals lined him up perfectly. He backed the float into the paddock. Monroe wouldn't even go into the lane where the float was however. I had to get a hot wire that wasn't connected and kind of drag net him into it. He immediately tried to jump over the front bar and got himself stuck with his rib cage taking most of his weight on this steel bar.
Mr Lovely Passing Couple spotted this through the window and asked if we had an angle grinder to cut the bolt from the outside because if he stayed that way, he'd die. He towed the float with bull inside up to the house and sheds and I went to get the grinder. I couldn't find it anywhere. There were four of us at this stage, frantically searching Hubby's shed and none of us could see it. We were considering other options when he managed to move himself back off this bar.
At this stage, we discovered the flat tyre on the float. Luckily, the foot pump was easily found.
10am when she left with Monroe, I thanked the Lovely Passing Couple profusely and I was ready to start hard drinking.
Kieran
It's been a while since we last got a bull. A big part of that was not having a vehicle capable of towing a float and bull available to us anymore (my car is only rated to tow 750kg) and no yards and ramps for trucks.
A very good friend with horses (and therefore, a float and capable vehicle) was kind enough to help us.
We started with a vague communication mix-up which meant we started out several hours later than planned. Kieran went onto the float beautifully - mind you, he also did it from a race only just wider than him. That was the easy part.
On the drive home, he kept jumping up and looking out over the door. The float had horizontal cross pieces on the ramp/door, that allowed him to have his front feet up and be hanging over the top. Afraid that he might jump out and hurt himself, my friend started to go side to side sharply. Just enough to throw him off balance so he'd want to have four feet on the floor. She had to do this a few times. Then as it was just shy of full dark and we were still in the middle of nowhere, we got a flat tyre on the float. Well, it wasn't just flat, it was shredded.
My friend had only had the van for a month or two and had never needed to change a tyre on it yet, so our first mission was to figure out where the jack and tools were hidden. Once they were found, Hubby got the wheel partially jacked up but we discovered the wheel brace for the van was the wrong size for the float wheel nuts. My friend rang her hubby to come and rescue us with a socket set, although he was at least 45 mins away. A lady came past and stopped, offering to call her husband to come and help, but since help was already on it's way, we said thanks but we're fine. She must have called anyway because her husband turned up about 10 minutes later with all the gear and plenty of stories about horse float mishaps - including cattle that jump out, bounce on the road, get up and run for miles.
Once we were back on the road, it was a long, dark, hungry trip home to unload him and then back to the friend's place where our car and Miss 11 were. I think we got a dinner of snacks sorted at about 11pm in the end.
Kieran was mostly well behaved, although he did spend a lot of time singing to the neighbour's cattle. Some of those songs were very long and lasted most of the night. But when we had those naughty cattle from the neighbours jumping fences to our place in the paddock next to him, he still stayed in his paddock and didn't push the issue.
When it came time for him to leave, he was going to Nelson, normally a four hour drive, but since the earthquakes changed the main road layouts, the only road available now was heavily travelled and in bad repair. This makes the trip about twice as long. The guy who was getting him wanted to send a truck down to pick him up. It was only going to cost him $75. I rang the neighbour to ask if we could use his yards and ramp.
Unfortunately, we'd just had about a month of constant rain, so the ground around his yards was very boggy, he said that he nearly got stuck there on his farm bike, but he'd help me run him to the yards and ramp about a kilometre up the road. I had lost the number for the people who own those yards. I tried both calling and texting the local stock agent who uses the yards often - partly for the number and partly to check if he would be using them. He still hasn't returned either call or text (months later). I wonder if he's afraid I was going to rip him a new one for his cattle breaking through the floodgate and eating the several hundred dollars worth of trees we'd planted.
We tried knocking on the door but there was no one home. I called the guy who Keiran was going to next and gave him an update. He said he'd get back to me, when he'd talked to the truck company.
The next day, I was driving past that neighbour's house and saw someone leaving and Mr Neighbour just heading back into the house. I stopped and spoke to him. He was quite happy to let us use the yards and gave me his number.
The guy who was getting Kieran next rang and I told him I had permission and contact but he'd already decided to drive down with a horse float and pick him up himself, did I know of a motel or some place to stay in Amberley?
They were at our place 7am two days later and Kieran loaded up into the float nicely.
Can't wait to see what the next one brings us.