Giant cow!

In the large village/town I live in [population 11.5K but no Town Hall so officially a village] there are still some fields within the residential areas, criss-crossed with public footpaths used every day by everyone from schoolkids to dog walkers, and folk just wanting to take a short cut.

The farmer who rents these fields usually puts in young cattle, one field in particular gets growing calves who are later moved to another field further up the road. The fact that they are always such a mixed bunch - usually a group of 6-8, mixed dairy/beef breeds - and they usually disappear 6 months later leads me to think they are Rose Veal on the hoof.

The bunch in the field up the road from me at the moment are the most assorted I have ever seen. There's a few young beef breed steers that look like the usual Hereford crosses, a couple of dairy-types, a very pretty pair of dark seal-brown bullocks, and.... The Giant.

I did a double-take the first time I saw him. He looks at first glance to be a young Friesian/Holstein.... but then you realise he is MASSIVE. Not massive in bulk but the tallest bovine I think I have ever seen! Standing up he must be almost 6ft to the shoulder and he is not beefy, he is tall and angular. He is the height of a very tall horse - 16hh at least.

I haven't got a pic of him standing but this is him lying down - he is the one in front - and note the 'crest' he has at the back of the neck


I have honestly never seen such a tall cow of any breed, he's like a Great Dane compared to the rest, yet still young.

I'm sure these mixed assortments are picked up from the market cheaply and put out to graze (bull calves and freemartin heifers that may well have been shot at birth in the past) so do you think he is from an unusual breed parentage, or maybe has some unusual growth disorder making him so tall?

Will try to get a photo of him standing up later this week.

A friend of mine had Red Holstein cattle.

I know nothing about them but it would be interesting to know what the story is as 6 foot seems unusual to me.

Like I said though I'm no expert so who knows.

I really want to find out more about him if I can and get more photos.

I have met one local farmer who rents most of the fields hereabouts - they specialise in Red Ruby Devons and also have a small herd of Dexters. I bumped into the owner of
these herds one day and had a nice chat about the cattle - Dexters in particular.

About 5-6 years ago there were rare breed Longhorns in the local fields, and wow - they were something else to see, beautiful as well as being very docile.

I have to admit the allsorts steers we have now in the same fields are sometimes difficult around dogs, and allegedly a couple of years ago someone's Jack Russell was killed by one in the same field I took the photo in today.

I keep Merlin on lead as we go through but in the past we've had steers charging us, and the received wisdom in in that case is to let the dog off the lead, which I did, and he astonished me by running up to them barking and rounding them up, keeping them at bay, even challenging one steer that tried to charge him several times. He now knows that if they ignore him, then all is well, but if they give him a funny look then he will react.

Might see if I can find come contact details for the Red Ruby/Dexter herd and see if they know who has these steers - might even be the same people.

I will ask OH when he gets in later and see if he can shed any light on the matter.

Could he just be an unusually large Friesian bullock like Chilli ... see attached link?

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencete...-elephant.html

He is lovely

Aren't some of the holsteins big?

Helen

Oh wow!

Yes that is interesting... as I am in Somerset, and if my guess is right that the farmer is buying in random calves from the market, then very possibly this giant bullock could share some of those genes.

I need to get some more pics to show you how tall he is. His fieldmates are square blocky young beef breeds, quite at odds with his tall angular bony frame.

I remember when the local beef farmer started to rent his fields to another local holstein farmer, my God Holsteins are mahoosive in comparison! Made beef cattle look like pet cattle!

Yes Holsteins are usually much bigger than Friesians.

OH has had a look and said yours is definitely a Holstein, MM

That is the biggest cow I have seen in my entire life