Bull Problems too!

  When I first went to work at the farm, Aldingers had two bulls.  One was called Chimp and he was a good-looking red Angus bull.  The other bull was a Charolais and Jude and I dubbed him "Ludwig" for some reason.  In the spring the two bulls began a lot of "jousting" back and forth and I guess they were well aware that winter was past and spring breeding season had begun.  Fred had a plan to breed the heifers to the Red Angus bull and the other mature cows to the Charolais. Hopefully this would be easier on the heifers when they calved.  One day, Fred informed me that it was time to take the bulls to Lofsted Farm and put them in with the cows waiting there.  I suggested we separate the bulls and take one at a time but no he insisted we take both together and said we had the whole afternoon to do this.  I had purchased another horse named Irish by that time and Jude and I saddled up and proceeded to drive the bulls down the four fields to the back road.  They constantly put there heads together and pushed each other backwards. It was going to  take a long time.  We thought it might go better once we were on the road but we no sooner got the bulls there and Chimp lost his footing and went down.

 He didn't seem able to rise again and I feared the worst.  Knowing Fred was still at the house, I told Jude I would  ride back and tell them the bull was down and instructed her to continue driving Ludwig down the road so he would not come back and finish off Chimp. I raced back and Jude tried to drive the other bull down the road.   At one point the Charlois was hot and tired and decided to make a stand. Drool hung off his nostrils and he shook his head and advanced on Jude and Trouble.  Neither of them wanted in on this war but Jude even got off the horse and tried to drive the bull on foot.  No way was Ludwig having any of it and now he started to paw the ground in agitation. It was enough for Jude and Trouble and they turned back and galloped home.

 Meanwhile back at the farm, Fred didn't seem about to do anything like call the vet etc. so I started back to where Chimp was.  As I looked up I could see Jude riding Trouble hell for leather across the fields. Her ponytails were flying in the air and I watched to see if he would buck when he hit a muddy patch but he didn't put a lot of effort into it.  I was a little disappointed she had not been able to keep the white bull going and could see he had returned to Chimp already, but he just seemed tired not aggressive towards Chimp.  Jude had quite the tale to tell and had lost her nerve entirely-so had Trouble.  Between the two of us we drove the Charlois bull out to where he was supposed to be.  Poor Chimp had apparently broken a hip and it wasnt' until late afternoon that someone finally put him out of his misery.  They butchered him up and even gave us some of the meat but it beyond edible was so tough.  I was sorry this had happened to the nice Red Angus bull, but that was farming!