Two days after our quiet bull arrived for his six week visit, the neighbour’s paddock suddenly sprouted its own bull. The two paddocks are separated by our iron cattle yard, so at best they can get to within four metres of each other.

Which they did. The two of them stood there, facing off, shouting abuse and yelling terrible threats against each other. Both of them did the pawing the ground, to the point of digging a large hole.

“MMMMWWWWOOOOOOAAAARRRRRRRRGGGGGGHHHHHHH!!!!”, they would shout at each other, for hours on end.

On the other side of the farm, another neighbor had a few cows. One of them, at least, had her eye on our bull. “Yoo Hoo! I say…Yooo Hoo!” she would yodel, starting at about 2 am and continuing until about 5:45. Her devilishly attractive banter would engage our bull, and he would stand on our side of the fence and bellow back.

This activity has kept our bull pre-occupied, and I was doubtful that he had his mind on the job at hand. We’ve got 5 eligible ladies awaiting his attention…..

After a few days of this I moved the cattle away from the giggling girly cows. This still left him able to face off against his nemesis, but closed off the night time banter so we could get some sleep.

But it didn’t quite go in his favour. I was driving past yesterday and could see the neighbor’s small herd was milling around the fence, on the closest point to our place. Our bull, of course, was up against the fence looking on.

But then the action changed. The neighbour’s bull rose above the crowd in a Cazaly-like move, as he mounted one of the cows. I’m sure he was saying, “Watch THIS, buddy!” as he did so.

Our bull, as he watched the show, had his response ready….a very mournful “mwaaaah”.

As predicted, the spiteful Hereford cow is slowly recovering the use of her hind legs, numbed and not quite working after a drawn out birth. She hadn’t forgotten her grudge, and the first time she could she went for me. I was doing the regular patient visit, to make her stand up and walk around. I usually take something of interest and drop it out of reach…an apple, some hay, fresh water and so on.

My mistake, this time I held out the apple to see if she would take it. No. Her preference was to charge me and try and head-butt me. Without her back legs she couldn’t dig in and really push hard, but I had to hold her back as she tried get her head down to toss me.

Apart from the noise and my sanity, there was another reason for moving the other cows, I merged them into the paddock where Grumpy was, on the basis that her behavior would settle with the other cows around her. Which has proved to be the case.

Although the first thing the other cows did when they met up with her was give her a few whacks themselves. “Remember me? You used to stop me from getting a drink….Take that!”, and so on.

I used to walk out amongst the cows and feed them apples in the morning. With the bull amongst them and the Psycho Hereford loose, I am doing that in a vehicle now.