A cow of a day

By Peter Sweeney
PETER Chapman thanks his lucky stars, thanks God and thanks whoever, that his sons Luke and Christian were with him … for two reasons.
First and foremost, he has no doubt he would have died if they weren’t.
Secondly, he wouldn’t have verification of an incident that literally had to be seen to be believed.
A couple of years ago, Peter had an Angus cow which was a “real bitch of a thing.” He only kept the cow because she was purebred, a good producer and rearer of “ripper calves.”
Anyway, one day, Peter was yarding stock in the yards at his Pound Road property in Clyde North. He should have known what the cow was capable of doing after earlier seeing her virtually gore one of the family dogs.
Peter felt this enormous push in the back – and the next thing he knew he was flying through the air. When he landed, stunned and breathless, he was being pinned against the stockyard fence.
“I was kicking and hitting her – but it made no difference, she didn’t let up and kept coming at me,” Peter recalled.
“If Luke and Christian weren’t there, she would have finished me off.” He lifts the leg of his pants to reveal war wounds on the left hand side.
“I initially put water and disinfectant on it, because I didn’t think the injury was too bad.
“Three days later and it was infected and the doctor gave me the same injection they use to treat meningococcal disease. I had a needle every day for two weeks.
“That cow was as tough as. I bought her in calf and with a calf at foot from a stud dispersal sale at Yea. The cows in the high country up there can look after themselves because it is the land of wild dogs.”
The cow met an untimely death, courtesy of a bull who broke her back.
It’s fair to say Rex, the kelpie, and Prince, the border collie, didn’t shed too many tears over the loss.
But just two weeks ago, Peter Chapman was reminded of the cow. And again, he was thankful his boys were again there, not so much for the lifesaving this time as the telling of an amazing story.
Peter was again herding cattle into the yards – and wanted to separate this big Angus bull, an offspring of the cow who attacked him – from the cows. He did that and walked away. Looking back soon after, he saw the bull in another yard.
“I thought I’d shut the gate, but I couldn’t have,” Peter said to himself. So he went back to the yards, moved the bull out, shut the gate and was letting the bull settle before ear-tagging him.
What he and son Christian then saw had them gobsmacked.
They watched the 910-kilogram bull jump over a nigh-on two-metre tall yard – from a standing start.
“We just couldn’t believe it possible, we couldn’t believe it but we saw it,” Peter said.
The high-jumping bull has since been sold – “my father-in-law always told me to sell bulls close to the football finals because imagine how many pies are eaten there” – but not before some drama.
“I asked my stock livestock driver (John McGuiness) to bring along a couple of girlfriends for this bloke,” Peter said.
“He was a handful to load as it was … and I kept thinking how he could tip a truck over if he tried to jump out. Once they’re (cattle) loaded, they’re insured. I was happy when he finally left here.”
Now, when he’s not working with, or against, circus like performing Angus cattle, Peter Chapman says life is pretty humdrum on his 55-hectare property.
He spends his days happily on the land. Wife Maree spends her working days at Beaconsfield, where she teaches English and is the community liaison officer at St. Francis Xavier College.
The Chapmans, whose daughter Jacinta splits her brothers in age, have farmed in Pound Road for 11 years after working a property in nearby Grices Road for many years.
“I had bought that property from (the late) Rupe Richardson, who was a legend with horses,” Peter said.
“We had beef cattle at Grices Rd but were mainly into horses, especially breeding. We also agisted horses, mainly for trainers.
‘There’s no horses here, just the beef cattle.
‘When we bought here, I thought I would escape urban development and retire here peacefully.
“Now the desal work is right on our front doorstep. I don’t think there will be houses here for another 10 years, but the local council aren’t missing out with the rates. The bill is more than $20,000 a year – or, as I see it, rearing 40 vealers a year.
“You cannot make money out of farms in this area anymore. And I’m pretty sure the local council don’t want farmers anymore.”
The Chapman men are also agricultural contractors, eldest child Luke running a business from Elmore, where he drives trucks and does “a bit of everything.” The Elmore Field Days, one of the biggest in the country, are presently on.
Christian qualified as a mechanic with Mercedes Benz in Melbourne and these days spends his time between studying mechanical engineering at university and working on the farm. Jacinta is the marketing manager of Allpower, distributor of outdoor power equipment, such as lawnmowers, chainsaws and the like.
“Yes, I think being a farm-reared girl probably helped her get the position,” a proud Peter said.
“She knows how to use a lawnmower and a chainsaw pretty well.”
These days, Peter Chapman crosses Angus and Friesian cows to get “a bit more milk.’
And he’s into Limousin bulls, mainly because “that’s what the butcher wants today.’
“There’s hardly any fat and good muscle score from the Limousins – and the Limousin calves sell for at least $50 a head more,” Peter said.
However, when it came to the unpredictable on the Chapman farm, nothing could match the Angus … particularly one cow and bull.