Bulls and Sheep

Hello all!

Last year, we did all of our breeding with bulls. We had two little yearling Normande bulls named Rodney and Roderick, who while somewhat timid around people, were ideal employees in that they were enthusiastic and focussed on their assigned task, but had no interest in leading revolutionary coups. Once the fall came, and Roderick started looking at us sideways when we got too near his girls, they both went in the freezer, and everyone declared them to be delicious.

This year, being without any breeding age bulls, we bred artificially for six weeks, and then called our friends Katia and Brendan at Misty Brook Farm, and asked to borrow their bull for cleanup breeding. We had last seen Hercules in February when he was about 700 lbs and cute and friendly, and he seemed like a good choice for genetics.

When Hercules arrived 2 Sundays ago, he was no longer cute and friendly. In the time since February, he had gained about 600 lbs, 18" of horns, the ego of Papa Doc Duvalier, and the moo of a, well... (right now you are filling in the blanks with words like "lion" or "grizzly bear" or a similarly large and scary creature, but actually, his moo more closely resembles...) a sheep. A loud and whiny sheep. And it is this feature, above all others, that is driving us insane.

Hercules doesn't want the cows to go in for milking. Once they are milked, he doesn't want them to come out of the barn. He wants to be first into the chute to go in the parlor, but he won't come in. Or let anyone else in. If you try to separate him, he rounds all the cows up and tries to take them back out to pasture. And when overruled, he protests each blow to his authority by lowering his horns, pawing the ground, snorting, and making loud, um, sheep noises. For the entire time it takes us to milk the cows and send them back out again. Every day. Twice a day.

We thought we would keep him around for six weeks, just to make sure everyone was bred, but we can't take it any more. We knew that we never wanted sheep. Certainly not 1300 lb sheep with horns. And most definitely not sheep with the vocal projection a boat siren. So he's headed back home to Barre tomorrow, where he can annoy his rightful owners all he wants. As for any unbred cows that may still be out there, we'll be bringing up our little, docile Normande bull Boo. Who moos like a champ, and knows when just to stand aside and let the girls have their way.