Last autumn when our young bull, then about 15 months old was turned out with our few cows he sadly recieved what has turned out to be quite a serious groin injury to both inside back legs.
We and the vet that has examined him believe that the biggest cow a dun - not the one with him in these pics I took of him today, must have flattened the poor boy! The vet doesn't think he will make a full recovery as he hasn't improved greatly over winter and still doesn't walk properly. The advice is he should be OK to serve cows and has served one since the accident but don't travel him and keep him off wet concrete.
Most upsetting as he has only been to 2 shows and had two 1st places and a championship but worse as we only have 4 cows, he was going to pack his bags and go Devon for 6 months this summer and I imagine he is more upset than I am about missing that opportunity!!!
??? Saffy - you have our sympathy, as we had a similar problem in 2007. We had a 3 1/2 year old short legged bull which suffered a stifle injury as the result of a belted galloway cow jumping on HIM and flattening him into the ground, not once but twice! The second time, I was rescuing him from her unwanted attentions and as he was on a halter at the time it was a bit hairy to say the least! Sadly after a nearly a year of rest, he still was not sound & so unable to serve non-short cows as his stifle was too unstable, so he had to go. I hope you have better luck.
We learnt a valuable lesson from this experience as he was on hire at the time and in future I will not let my bulls visit where there are breeds other than Dexters, as the offending cow had been AI'd and was supposed to be well in calf.
It just goes to prove how irresistable Dexters are.... to other bovines as well as us Dexter keepers!
Best wishes
Sally
Frith Dexters
Thanks for the reply and so sorry to hear about your bull.
Would you believe our big dun cow wasn't actually bulling when she flattened our bull. However she is, it would seem - always willing to display apparent bulling activity - even when a fortnight from having her next calf and so when the heifer came bulling she must have simply joined in. Lesson now learned and we will know to keep her away again when anything could be bulling at all and there is a bull in the field.
