Over the years we've gone through many bulls of various breeds. When I arrived in MN Alan & his dad were running Simmental/Simangus bulls. They looked big and impressive with nice white markings that I was fond of but, we had no luck with the particular lines we had.
First thing we noticed was the calves were nuts. Not just a little nervous around people, I mean, clear the fence, smash the gates down loco! Try to herd them into a pen? Forget it. They ran like deer and dove through a five wire barbed fence like it was nothing. Me being a newby to cattle at the time wondered if they were all this way. Certainly not.
Due to the temperament issues we were not able to keep many replacement heifers. I'll never forget one in particular. She taught me a whole nother level of respect for cattle. She was black and white with a big black spot on her nose. We'd penned her for vaccinations and she just snapped. She pawed the ground, bellered. She wanted to mow us into the dirt.
Al & his dad wisely decided to sell her and they barricaded up the pen overnight to haul her the next morning to the sales barn. Only problem, she had escaped. She smashed the upper gate (chained upon the regular gate to prevent jumping) and had gotten into the pasture. Al and I decided to round her up with the 4-wheeler and a cattle prod. Probably not the best idea.
As testimony to how nuts this heifer was she took after us in the open field. More commonly cattle only get pushy when confined. It certainly wasn't normal. Finally we chased her into the swamp and Alan decides to go in after her. "Can't loose her" he says. I was less than supportive of this idea, but there was no stopping him.
Pretty soon I hear frantic yelling, she was after him! Al had climbed a partially fallen tree to escape and the psycho heifer was thrashing it with her head in hopes of getting him. It was the most scared I'd ever been. I wondered if the only way to get Al out safely would be to shoot her.
Fortunately she became distracted by Al's dad walking forward to get a closer look. She turned and went down in the mud in the swamp allowing Al a few minutes to make a run for it. I picked him up at the edge of the swamp with the 4-wheeler and rode to safety.
Needless to say, we no longer run Simmental cattle. Some people had good luck with them, but for me, all I think of is that crazy heifer who tried to kill us. The guys at the sales barn weren't too happy with her either. She busted two gates on them and they cleared out the bottom row of the seats when she came into the sales arena.
Fast forward to this years calving: Some nice Gelbvieh/Angus and Hereford mixes are about to hit the ground. We've had good luck with these crosses and are hopeful for another nice batch.
While we never took a picture of the actual crazy heifer, she looked roughly like this.
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