Rex

Brigitte Ruthman writes about her handy steer, Rex:

Rex, a shorthorn bull calf, had the shape and feel of a long legged lamb when I paid $200, cradled him in my arms and carried him to the new barn in Massachusetts.
The roof was hardly finished, but his thrill after spending his first weeks of life in Chris Hopkins’ barn in Cornwall was the untamed pasture.
He hardly had interest in the bottle of milk replacer I offered him twice daily, preferring to nibble at wild grasses.
It was his land to tame, his to explore, alone.
Two months later I delivered Echo Farm Mizzou to the pasture, a heifer two months his junior.
Rex, who had lived his entire life alone, reminded me of the boys on the television show “Dukes of Hazard” when he wound round and round his first and only love. Mizzou was renamed Daisy Duke.
Rex was trained as an ox, which means his reproductive organs were removed and along with it the aggression that makes all bulls dangerous. His horns were not cut, as heifers’ horns are almost always to avoid harm to other cows and humans.
He learned the commands that must have echoed for 200 years on this hilly ground, “gee” and “haw” and “stop”, my own version of “whoa.”
Rex and Daisy wandered the field together, never far apart. On occasion when I would take one or the other for training, the one left behind would bellow until the mate returned. When Daisy didn’t follow on the tour back from the back pasture to the barn , Rex would point his ears in the direction where he had come from, and go back to fetch her.
Daisy was bred last Spring to a bull picked out of a catalog, by artificial insemination. I looked forwad to Rex’s reaction to a calf in April.
Rex grew adept, though reluctant, at pulling logs on a succession of yokes and chains. He preferred to linger in the late afternoon sun with Daisy, a view which seemed to remind of E.B. White’s words that “nothing could go wrong in the world.”
He grew to be a particularly strong and large steer by 20 months, but didn’t yet qualify for the title “ox” which is only earned after 2 years.
Two other calves had joined the herd, another heifer and another young steer, Thyme and Duke. Many more would be added, as the farm grew and more land was added. But Rex was king and Daisy was his queen.
When foot surgery prevented me from caring for Rex, who is territorial and potentially harmful to others (even as a steer) because of his horns, I made the difficult decision to part with him.
I called a friend, who called a friend, who came with a trailer and took him away. There could be no deeper guilt that begging his name on a halter, to deliver him to his death in a slaughterhouse. I wanted to know nothing more.
I had no strength to quibble with the price I was paid- $350 on the hoof for a steer that cost $800 to raise, not including time or emotion. I stuffed the bills in my pocket. One more reason to reject farming as a viable industry.
“Beef isn’t bringing much,” Chuck said. I was fighting back tears and couldn’t disagree.
I tried not to dwell on it, but Daisy wouldn’t let me forget. She bellowed for her lost mate, shoving the Thyme and Duke aside.
I got a call the next day from John, who trains oxen at his farm in Southbury. I had introduced myself and offered him my phone number after seeing his team compete at the Goshen Fair in the ox pulling ring. Strangely, his shorthorns were like twins to Rex’s chocolate and white roan color. Ox teams are picked to match.
We had the breed in common- the sturdy heirloom milking shorthorn- and thought it would be a good idea to connect. I would have bulls calves for him to keep from the slaughterhouse. I didn’t think he would keep the number.
John called me a day after I sold Rex. He asked if I still had that roan steer. My heart sank. “I shipped him yesterday,” I said.
A pause.
“I have him,” he replied. “What’s his name?”
“Rex,” I said.
“I bought him from Chuck, because one of my pair died of Lyme Disease and the other needed a companion. He’s standing on several inches of sawdust as we speak.”
“I would have given him to you for free,” I whispered.
This, I thought, was the best Christmas present I could have wished for.