After two months spent with some lovely looking cows on the Shuttleworth Estate near Biggleswade, Admiral arrived home on Friday and seemed pretty pleased about it.
Like any youngster one hasn’t seen for a while he seems to have filled out in those few weeks away. He may be a bit disappointed with the relatively sparse grass we have to offer this summer in comparison to the lovely grazing he’s been enjoying. Hopefully he will like the company though.
This is the second year Admiral has spent time at Shuttleworth and being an agricultural college, there’s no shortage of students to help get him loaded, or at least to watch. This time we arrived a few minutes late and he along with his cows and last year’s calves were penned up. Fifteen students waited in the wings to learn how to handle a bull. No pressure then.
Jane, as ever, calmly offered some food, slipped a halter over his head and suggested he might like to walk onto the trailer. My role was to try to stay calm, offer probably pointless comments like “this is something that there’s no point getting cross about” and lastly and definitely pointlessly, leaning against Admiral’s sizeable rump and pushing.
As ever, Jane’s quiet words, some tasty snacks and a bit of a tug got him on board. Thanks to Joy Broughton for producing such a docile giant.
Anyway, now he’s home, let’s hope he does his stuff successfully once again.