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Experiment

by Beverley, Napier, New Zealand

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My father had a dairy farm and had endless problems with various bulls. One bull , sporting the name of Samson, was a menace. Fences and hedges meant nothing to him, he was capable of ploughing through them like cheese if a 'bulling' (on-heat) cow was at the end of the road.

Then came the miracle - electric fences. My father drooled as he ran the wire along the side of the bull-paddock. Revenge was going to be sweet. He drove a couple of amorous heifers into the next paddock and stood back to watch the fun.

Samson wasn't going to muck around. He marched up to the fence and placed his wet nose on it. Yeeeeow, the bull jumped some feet into the air. My father doubled up in delighted laughter - that bull was at least five smashed fences up on him. Samson, now pawing the ground ferociously and bellowing simply couldn't under-stand what had happened. Yes, he put his nose on the fence again, same result. By now Samson was so enraged he was frothing at the mouth and my father was standing in the next paddock helpless with laughter.

What happened next shows the crafty unpredictability of bulls. Somehow Samson had decided that my father was at the foot of the whole thing and he wasn't putting up with it. He pointed himself at my father and charged, right through the fence. My father, meantime had taken to his scrapers and had managed to encase himself in a small farm manure shed, just in time.

We didn't know where my father was and he stayed in the shed for the rest of the day until located that night by my mother. Samson was still patrolling the perimeters of the shed, pawing the ground and frothing at the mouth. A team of dogs had to be recruited to rescue my father.

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Editor's note:

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