Walter's Big Day

There comes a time in every young bull's life at the MRC when, like it or not, one must say farewell to the security of the cow pen and move forward into the unknown realm of Pen 3; the bull pen. A place where size does matter and your new companions aren't going to be as nice to you as your mom and all of her lady friends were. For Walter, the smashingly handsome young bull with the big brown eyes and budding antlers that we've all been admiring from afar, yesterday was his day.

The process actually started earlier in the week, when we began enticing Walter and his mom, Olivia, into a smaller pen by way of a tasty salt lick. Yesterday afternoon, Stacy and Annie spent 30 minutes or so trying to channel the two into an even smaller area, but to no avail. Finally, like a dog on a leash, Olivia followed Stacy at her heels directly into the area while I closed the gate behind her. We now had Walter separated from his mom. The next task was getting close enough to dart him. Since he was not bottle-raised, he was having none of it and it took another good 30 minutes for the three of us to corner him so Stacy could get a clear shot.

Sedation occurred quickly. There was a lot of information Stacy wanted to gather in a relatively short time frame including blood samples, size and temperature measurements, and body mass estimations, as well as an overall physical assessment and several anti-biotic injections. In addition, Walter was dressed in his very own radio-collar!

You might recall from an earlier posting that Walter had a run-in with a porcupine a couple weeks back. The quills in his nose had already fallen out with no infection but Stacy had to remove a dozen or so from his front hoof/ankle area and treat it for further infection.

When finished, it was a short 5 minutes before Walter had his wits about him again and was able to easily make his get-away from us to the farthest corners of the pen. He'll eventually find his way into Pen 3 on his own.

What an incredible animal. I never imagined I'd get a chance to do something like this. Thanks for asking me to help out, Stacy!

This is Maverick, one of Walter's new penmates.

Other news:

Minne continues to be doing well. She loves our company and wants to be close by. She weighs in at 136 pounds!

I saw a bear this morning! It's the second one I've seen, both very close to the cabin. We were all inside looking out on this dreadfully rainy/blustery day when he lumbered up into view. Grabbing pots and pans, we ran onto the porch and scared him off.

My time at the MRC is coming to a close. The weather here today kind of matches my mood in light of this realization. If you've been reading this blog, you know why.