Ferdinand the Bull

 There's an old children's story called "Ferdinand the Bull".  It's about a bull who refused to fight, and instead went out by a tree and smelled the flowers while the other bulls were out playing and fighting.  He didn't care for fighting like the others and instead just preferred to sit alone and enjoy the flowers. One day men came out to select the meanest, toughest bull to challenge the great matador at the big fight.  Upon inspections Ferdinand sat upon a bee and he charged and spun and ran ferociously.  The inspectors were amazed and thought this one to be the meanest toughest bull there is.  Anyway you may need to check out the whole story.   

Here I will tell a story of a bull I have now begun calling Ferdinand. One day we were rounding up the bulls to be checked by the vet for proper vitality. All the bulls were together but one. One bull was off by himself under the trees. I tried to round him up but he began running from tree to tree trying to hide from me.  We gave up to get him later and get the others worked. About two weeks later it was time to put bulls out to pasture with the cows and so it was time to get our Ferdinand, which is what we began to call him.  I anticipated needing some help getting him out of the trees, so this sounded like a good job for Baron to help.  It took a couple passes around the field to locate him, but we found him. Upon approaching our bull ran past us and headed straight for a downed tree, that had a well worn patch of dirt around it. 


It took some pestering but Baron and I got him to move out from there.  

An old rancher in the area recently gave me some advice on moving bulls.  You need to find their "flight zone".  The space that is ideal for getting them to move where you want without getting upset. Get too close the may get mad.  Too far and they'll ignore you.  They may do that anyway.  My dad has also advised bulls have their own pace and it's often very slow and you just let them do their own pace.   I tried implementing these gleaned principles. 

Well Baron and I got him moved up a little, but Ferdi found another tree to hide under and there he stayed.  We gave up and and reported back to my father the situation.  We returned with two International tractors. 


30 minutes later Ferdi was united with his summer companions and responsibilities.  He seems to have flipped the proper switches and is more interested in cows than flowers or trees. As he should be.   

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