It was a bit of a surprise for Andy Rideout when he got a call from Henderson City Attorney Dawn Kelsey asking for help in dealing with a cow roaming a city neighborhood a few weeks ago.
Rideout, the horticulture extension agent at the University of Kentucky Cooperative Extension office in Henderson, said he’s no expert and probably not the first person to call to deal with a loose cow.
Still, he does raise some cattle and have a trailer for hauling livestock, so he decided to take a look and see if he could help round up the cow. On the evening of Aug. 15, he drove out to the Countryview neighborhood in the Old Madisonville Road area and searched for a couple hours that evening but saw nothing before calling it quits.
Later, at about 10 p.m., he got a call that the cow had been located in a wooded area.
Rideout decided not to try his luck then, saying “there’s no way” he could get the animal loaded in the trailer at night. He went to bed but was awakened early the next morning at 5:15 by a phone call alerting Rideout that the cow was located.
When he arrived, he learned that “it’s not a cow, it’s a bull.”
Luckily, though—for loading sake—it wasn’t a regular-sized bull which can weigh more than a ton, but instead a mini-Hereford.
This mini-bull—Rideout named him “Bully”—weighed an estimated 600-800 pounds, he said.
Rideout called backup—Kevin Martin, Robbie Williams and Lupe Gonzalez, aka the Bull Whisperer—and they were able to lasso Bully and get him into the trailer in 30-40 minutes, Rideout said.
“Luckily, he was a small bull and a pet,” said Rideout. It would have been a different story to get a regular-sized bull loaded, he said.
Williams, who has a herd of 125 head, added that the roundup was spearheaded by Gonzalez, who is Williams’ cattle manager.
“If there’s anybody who can do it (round up a bull), Lupe would be the guy,” Williams said, adding, “I generally stay out of the way.”
After Rideout got the bull in his trailer, there was then the problem of finding Bully’s owner. In the meantime, Bully stayed at Rideout’s house in a fenced area where he was fed and treated for flies.
Rideout made numerous calls and couldn’t find the owner. That got him thinking what would happen if no one were to claim Bully.
He called County Attorney Steve Gold who told him he was unsure, but added that stolen or lost property is typically turned over to the sheriff’s office, but getting Bully—“he’s not going to like that.”
Finally, Rideout found the owner, Chuck Orth, the controller at Hazex Construction. Rideout said Orth had just bought the mini-Hereford and it was getting used its new environment on land near the company.
The bull got out of the pen and like many travelers before him followed the path of water, which in Bully’s case was a ditch that brought him to the neighborhood.
“He was just out for a good stroll,” Rideout said.
