Posted on 08/28/2010 1:50:55 PM PDT by Free ThinkerNY
Trigger the Friesian was only a day old when his farmer aimed his shotgun at him - and because he did not want any more males he intended to kill the baby calf.
But neighbour Shaun Layton stepped in, saved his life and now Trigger is 6ft 5in - and still growing!
Weighing in at nearly 1.2 tonnes and measuring a staggering 14ft from nose to tail, Trigger is set to move into the record books.
Amazingly, the seven-year-old bullock is still growing meaning he could smash through the current British record in a matter of months.
When Shaun, a carpet fitter, saved Trigger he had no idea his new black and white friend would grow up to his magnificent size.
Trigger's enormous weight means he could potentially make 7,665 Big Macs or even 6,137 Burger King Whoppers.
But family pet Trigger lives a life far removed from that of your average livestock.
Instead he enjoys a relaxed lifestyle in a field at Kingswood, Herefordshire, where he eats a daily diet of grass, cattle cake, mineral lick and a packet of apples every week.
Shaun said: 'When you get up close to him, he really is quite imposing.
'He's growing steadily and he's gained an inch in the last 12 months, so he's coming towards the British record, which is about 6ft 7in.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
Putting an bull calf to sleep as granddaddy would say with a shotgun?
I wonder if a Brit farmer is not allowed a rifle
Holstein bull,they will kill you in a minute
We had a guy in the next county over get killed by a pet Buffalo a coupla weeks ago
Castrated and dehorned. Interesting language. Here it is a steer. There they call it a bullock? How about an ox?
Anyway, it should be calmer and it sure is big.
I don’t think that my cutting horse would be very happy if she saw that mountain of meat.
My husband’s grandfather used to go to the dairies and get the bull calves for free, and he kept a red and white Holstein steer. He was over 6 ft and weighed 2400 lbs and you could ride him.
He always put him in all the parades and then let children ride him in the park. On my second date with my husband we took him to the car wash and washed him for a parade.
Extremely large, very powerful and pretty rare these days, but Europe used to be full of enormous bovines at least that big. Oxen used to be the preferred beast of burden, as opposed to a horse, and there used to be breeds of oxen that were just enormous.
During the Napoleonic Wars, both sides used enormous herds of oxen to move. Wellington had as many as 250,000 head of ox in his army, and one 24 pound siege gun needed a team of as many as 64 head of ox to move. Each ox in the team also carried six shot on it’s back in addition to pulling the gun. Of course he needed even more oxen to pull the wagons full of food and forage (not to mention tons of gunpowder) along with all of the other supplies for the army.
Pretty impressive, but I’m glad I don’t have to feed it or clean up after it...
Holy Cow!
No, Bull!
Stupid farmer, if you don’t want a bull, neuter it and eat it in a couple of years....don’t know of any farmer that kills a calf cause they don’t like the sex....but then again, this is England
Good find. Amazing! Thank you.
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I’ve seen heifers like that at Walmart!
Pretty common with dairy farmers. Heifers he can raise, and milk. With artificial insemination, the number of bulls he needs is somewhere between zero, and a handful. Bull calves are not needed, and allowing them to nurse takes milk that the dairy farmer could otherwise sell.
We had a neighbor who said the worst job he ever had was working at a dairy, before WWII. He was told to never leave a live bull calf at the farm, when he left work for the day. He took home and gave away all he could, and the rest he disposed of the way the farmer did -- clubbed them to death and dumped them in a ditch for the buzzards. He would still choke up when talking about it 40 years later.
In addition, there are some king-sized wild oxen. The largest is the gaur or Asiatic bison. Bull gaurs of 7+' at the shoulders and way in excess of 3,000 pounds have been recorded. They are known to be very territorial and inclined to aggressively challenge anything which crowds them.
Interestingly, it has been reported that there are no accounts of a tiger having ever killed a bull gaur but several reports of bull gaurs killing tigers. Guars sound like one bad-ass cow.
When we had our Angus slaughtered and the carcass sent to the butcher in the little town near by, I went into the hanging room to see our cow.
I had been warned by a neighbor that sometimes the slaughter house would not sent you your cow to the butcher so I went into the hanging room as ask the butcher what he could tell use about our beef. He called it an Angus, butchered a little later than it should have been, told us her age and said she should have been sent 6 months earlier as each breed of cow matures at a specific age....he also show use a milking cow hanging and there was lots of bony structure and not as much meat as a beef cow...it was very interesting, as he also had a couple of deer hanging to age...
man-boy-hey!
I understand that. Yes, I eat meat and wear leather. As a motorcyclist, I probably have more than most. But I have a soft spot for doomed animals.
If I had a whopping slab of money, I'd probably buy a ranch- where I'd buy 'downers' from feed lots and have a vet on staff to nurse them to health, and just let them live full lives munching on grass and crapping everywhere, and doing what they'd do, if left to their own devices.
Yeah, I'm eccentric.
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