Part XI

I was remembering the other night an incident I had found amusing at the time, so I thought I’d share it.

It was while working at the outfit on Washtunca Creek in south-central Washington. We ran a small mixed herd of white-faces and Angus cows, with just Hereford bulls. The boss figured we had more bulls than we really needed so it was time to cull some out. We had fourteen bulls running with the cows. We had to sort them out, then drive them to the pens. It took us a couple if days to find those bulls and get them sorted out. Once we rounded them all up, we brought them in to the home ranch corrals. The boss figured to test them for virility and potency. If they were a weak producer, we would get rid of them. No need to feed something that ain’t producing.

Once we got those bulls all penned up, we had a crew from the Vet school at Washington State University come over. They had all this fancy equipment to check them bulls out accurately. I think the school was also using this as a learning program for the students, because they had more folks with them than we had bulls.

I don’t know how it was done before, and I don’t know how it is done now, but I’ll try to explain the procedure that was used then. I’ll try not to be too gross or insult anyone’s sensibilities.

Anyway, we would run a bull into a squeeze shoot and lock him in. Some we actually had to hobble. We even ran ropes over their backs and tied them down as best we could.

Once we got him as secure as we could, the vet technician would go to work. They had a long glass rod, with an electrical cord attached. It was a type of electrode. This glass rod was lubricated and inserted into the bull’s rectum. Once it was inserted, a pot was held under the bull’s equipment. This job was usually assigned to one of the young ladies in the group. Probably a bit of sexism there, huh? When the pot was in place, a charge of electricity was administrated through the glass rod. This caused the bull to ejaculate, hopefully into the pot. They would usually hit him about three times over a ten minute period. That is ,if they had captured enough semen. If not, they would give him another shot or two.

Needless to say, this left those old bulls pretty well worn out. They would stagger out of the chute like a drunk cowboy out of a saloon on a Saturday night.

After collecting the samples, the vet and students loaded up and went back to the school to run tests. It would take a few days to get the results.

Now we come to the amusing part. In that herd of fourteen bulls, there were half a dozen or so that were in the five to six year old group. As we found out later, they were all pretty good as far as fertility. The boss had bought four new, young bulls the previous fall with fancy pedigrees. She was very proud of them. There were a couple more bulls that were getting on up there in age, but were still healthy. And, finally, there was this one old guy. He was way past ten. His hide was all patchy, with hair falling out and big-old bald spots. His legs were splayed out with flat feet. One horn curled up and back while the other curled down and forward, sort-of a corkscrew. All in all, he was a pretty sad looking fellow. That was one the boss wanted to get rid of.

Then the results of the test came in. Ol’ twisted-horn was the most potent of the bunch! And, a couple of those “prize” bulls the boss was so proud of were almost sterile!

Later, while making a ranch call and looking over some of latest calf-crop, the Vet said he thought that the old bull was probably responsible for at least a third of the crop.

So, this convinced the boss to stay with some of the old tried and true ones. We shipped a couple of the older ones, and two of the young “prize” ones and cut the bull herd down to ten, which, as long as that old guy kept up with his job, was all the ranch needed.

I guess this goes to show you that just because a few of us get a little moss on our backs it ain’t necessarily time to put us out to pasture.