I mentioned Benjamin in this morning’s post and it occurred to me that I had not actually made a post about Benjamin. Benjamin is a bull we purchased last year from a fellow cattleman who was getting out of the business. Benjamin is a Spring Field bull which means he’s a superstar, bred for performance. When we give tours, even people who have no idea about cows remark about Benjamin and how massive he is.
There is a bit of an exaggeration in the above picture because Ben is a bit closer but it’s close enough to get the idea. Benjamin is easily twice the size of the year old steer beside him.
I noted in some previous posts that the flies were especially bad this year. We did do something about it. We built the contraption pictured above, with Benjamin as the Vanna White model. This mobile back scratcher lets the cows rub the areas where the flies congregate and treats them to try to keep the numbers down. In case you’re wondering, the wheels and tires are from the bent axle we replaced on our little trailer. Nothing goes to waste. As you can see Benjamin barely fits under the metal cross bars. The year old calf in the first picture can’t even reach the white part to scratch his back.
Benjamin is a good bull, and will be with us another 18 months or so before he moves on to a new owner. At that time, Boyd will take over as our herd bull and we will sell of Curious so there’s no incest. That’s assuming father and son can get along for that long.
We’ve really added some nice genetics into our herd with Benjamin and that should continue with Boyd into the future. Boyd likely won’t be the specimen that Benjamin is, but after what happened to Maggie, I think I’ll take a bit smaller bull.