My sister had surgery this morning, so I am taking care of her animals while she is in the hospital as well as when she comes home to recover. As I was walking towards the horse area to prepare their feed, I heard our wonderful coyote family out in the south pasture doing their feeding frenzy call. I was a little concerned that they were down from South Mountain in the daylight, plus the fact that our older cow Suzi is having issues with walking and was afraid that they had cornered her and took her down.
I began walking through the middle pasture that would lead me to the south pasture. Our bull, Romeo, greeted me and I continued walking. Romeo is a young bull that has been fixed & dehorned since he came from a petting zoo, so he’s always been gentle with children and all of us. As I made my way through some trees and brushes I could tell I was getting closer to the pack, but all of a sudden I heard running and turned around and saw Romeo coming straight at me.
My first thought was that this is weird, why is he acting funny. He was running and bucking. He stopped a couple feet in front of me and just stared at me. I said, what the heck is up with you, you silly boy? I began turning around to continue walking when I heard him pawing the ground. I turned around to face him again and realized he had his head down, while pawing the ground. I knew instantly what that meant. All of a sudden he charges me and head butts me in my front LQ and slams me against the fence. It literally took the breath out of me. As I was trying to catch my breath, I put my arm up in his face hoping that would deter him away from me and began side-stepping, but not before he head butted me in the side/back area making me fall. I had to do a double-roll to get away from his hooves. So, now not only was I covered in cow poo & stickers and grass but my heart was beating a 1,000 x’s a minute.
I jumped on my feet and began backing away again when Romeo starting pawing the ground & I ran and jumped over these steel beams that were holding up the garage. He slammed into the bean and just looked at me. My heart was pounding so hard at this point and I was literally stuck in the middle of a pasture with a crazy bull. I kept yelling at him to get away, but he just didn’t seem to want to listen to me. I looked up and saw Suzi in between the fields and told her to come get this crazy man of hers. She just stood there. At least I knew she was safe from the coyotes. Not only was this bull crazy at the moment but also he was smart. All of a sudden, he walked around the beams and began walking into my safety zone….OH SHIT!!!!
I ducked under the garage and began crawling to the other side where I knew my BIL, David, had a truck. I ran towards the back of the truck and jumped on the back of it. Believe it or not, Romeo came running over to the back end and just stood starring at me. At this time, I was so upset, shaking, and trying not to break into tears because I knew that I had to stay calm, I reached into my pocket to call David. My intent was to tell him to come rescue me out of his pasture because his bull had become loco. However, that was not to be. You see, my cell phone was not in my pocket. In fact, it was in my SUV. I had broken my #1 safety rule….always carry your cell with you. But, hey how was I to know that doing a simple thing for my sister was going to end up with my life in jeopardy.
As I stood there trying to calm down, I heard crackling below me and saw Cesar (Dawn’s puppy dog) running up to me. I thought, MY HERO. He began barking at Romeo and he began backing away from him. I thought this would be a good time to sneak away. As Cesar kept him busy, I began stepping away. Unfortunately, with every step I took, the branches/leaves would crack beneath my feet & Romeo’s attention would be back on me.
However, my hero continued to bark around Romeo, which made him spin away from me, allowing me to run full force towards the pig area. I could hear Romeo running behind me, but I didn’t care, I was determined to get to a safe spot. I lunged over the back pig area & turned around and saw Romeo butting the gate with his head. At last, I felt a sigh of relief and Cesar followed me into the pig area, which wasn’t a great thing for the pig or duck. I ran to the front of the pig area, then through the front yard and out to the street calling for Cesar to return to me the way he came in. He squeezes through the gate and came underneath the front fencing area to me. As we left Romeo just staring at us, Cesar and I continued feeding the horses, but I was still shaking and hurting from where he head butted me.
After feeding, I told Cesar to return home (where I live down the street) & I drove to my pet sits, shaking so bad and crying that I was just thankful that I didn’t cause a crash. STUPID BULL!!!!
Our female cow, Suzi, will only butt head us if we have food in our hands. I had absolutely no food in my hand at the time that I entered the pasture area. All, I wanted to do was to make sure Suzi was safe from the coyotes.
