by Jan Fielden
The Back Herd is a different type of herd from the Middle and Yearling Herds. The Middle Herd especially is spoiled rotten. First Knight, who is now deceased, was the Herd Bull while he was alive. He use to have “stare downs” with The Colonel whenever it came to a question of whether The Colonel would walk down to the barn to give First Knight cubes. First Knight always, but always won that stare down. Now his son, Thorp, is the Herd Bull and while he is not quite as aggressive about “asking” for cubes, he never misses a time to stick his head in the barn door and wait for someone to notice him and give him cubes. Thorp knows enough that if the front barn door isn’t open, but The Colonel is down in that area, to go check the back barn door. If that doesn’t do the trick he goes to the shop, as along as the door is open, hunting for The Colonel and cubes! Stoneshire, Thorp’s brother, is also in this herd and his specialty is eating cubes from your hands. He doesn’t like to pick them up off the ground. He usually gets hand fed if The Colonel is there. The Back Herd is just wild! They want to fight each other or the hay all the time. Patriot is the Herd Bull back there and he will hit the bales of hay while they are still on the forks. More than once, The Colonel has had to stop the tractor until Patriot decides he has shown the bale a thing or two. They have knocked over feeders trying to be the first one at the trough I suppose. You never know what to expect with the Back Herd at the Red Oak Ranch.
