Off the Wall: That's a Lot of Cow Farts. Feeling Warmer?
An Alberta, Canada farm is home to Beef, the world's tallest steer
An Alberta, Canada farm is home to Beef, the world’s tallest steer
It was love at first sight when Jasmine Entz locked eyes with Beef’s scrawny, slimy body covered in straw that had emerged from the womb at the first slip of dawn in August 2017.
“He looked at me and I looked at him and I thought: that one’s cute,” said Entz, of Vulcan County, Alta. She asked her boss at the dairy farm if she could take the calf home once he was weaned off milk. He said yes.
She had no intention of raising one that would become a global phenomenon, taller than a pickup truck, as heavy as a rhinoceros - her own bovine version of Clifford the Big Red Dog. The Guinness Book of World Records announced Beef as the world’s tallest living steer at 1.95 metres tall , edging out by one centimetre the record held by an Oregon steer named Romeo. Beef, now eight years old, last weighed in at 1,100 kilograms , when officials took his measurements two years ago as the first step in confirming the record. He’s grown since then, Entz said, which Beef confirmed when he could no longer fit inside his trailer earlier this year. About 45 kilograms of hay is needed each day to power the hulking Holstein, Entz said, at a cost of about $400 a month. “I was always told that steers never stopped growing. And I was like, ‘That’s got to be a lie,’” she said.”
Except here we are, at eight years old, and he’s still growing.” Beef is a breed of cattle often fed to eventually be slaughtered for meat. Despite his name, he was never meant to be anything more than a pet. She was riding him by the time he…