With the advent of artificial insemination, new breeds were introduced to the area and Albert was keen to try the Charolais breed. He decided to keep the resulting bull calf and later encouraged me to use the bull over my cows.
There was a problem though because the breed is big and so calving was a problem and very often the vet had to be called. Luckily I had heard about this problem so limited the feed of the cows during the last month of pregnancy when the embryo/calf grows most.
Anyway I had few calving problems and one of my bull calves threw close to the Charolais breed, so much so that I kept him and a few around the area brought their cows to be serviced.
Charolais breeders will say that the breed is very quiet and I would agree with that.
One day I noticed that the bull had a weeping eye, so I decided to yard him to see what the matter was.
I had yarded him before of course but with other animals, and I had never put him in the rough old crush that I had made because he was too big for it. Even the TB tester (the bovine manitu test) just did the test with him standing in the yard.
This time he was not keen to go into the yard so I enlisted the help of my wife, who happened to be seven months pregnant. Well the bull made a run for it, and in her direction! She had to take evasive action so I quickly abandoned that method of mustering and instead brought a few cows up to keep him company. This worked well but the bull knew very well that I intended to focus on him.
The yard gate was two meters high and made from 150 x 35mm macrocarpa timber, he just put his neck over it and the gate shattered like matchwood - such was the strength of this animal.
So I quickly patched the gate up using some iron pipe I had salvaged out of an old cattle stop and went through the process again.
Among the cows and trying to look at the bull's eye, I was not very safe, so decided to chance the crush!
With some coaxing he went in and broke to wooden bail that held the neck/head in place. But I managed a look at his eye and saw he had a barley grass seed in it.
Barley grass seeds are nasty because they are barbed and work their way in to skin, (or eyes) the more movement, the deeper it went.
There was no way I was going to remove the seed from the bull, so I called the vet, who was busy and he told me to try to remove it myself!
I found some rope and disabled the bull's head as securely as I could and actually he was more calm that I would have expected. But I could not get it out!
I rang the vet back and he said it would be the next day before he could be there. He advised me to try again.
Finally I was successful, I had water there and folded the lower eyelid down and grasped the seed - I felt it scratch a bit and I washed his eye out as best I could.
The bull was patient as I undid the rope, but I had to cut him out of the head bail with a chainsaw - that agitated him a bit!
Talking about feeling the barley grass scratch his eyeball, there was a new regulation from the freezing works that all cattle should be de-horned.
I called the vet to de-horn the season's calves and to bring out an implement that I could purchase. This was a a gadget that had two blades and you opened the handles to clip out the horn bud.
The vet instructed me to hold the calf by the neck and hold his head still by grasping the skin between its nostrils. Then the vet used the implement! I felt the grinding cut through the calf's nose! It revolted me!
We did the six calves and I purchased the implement, only because he had brought with him especially - but I never used the impliment and never de-horned any more of my calves - the freezing works took them just the same!
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