Beefy bullock heading for heavyweight title
By Gary Cleland
Last Updated: 2:59am GMT 06/12/2007
A six-year-old Charolais bullock called The Field Marshall is tipped to become the biggest in the country over the next 12 months.
The Field Marshall towers over farmer Arthur Duckett. ‘He eats twice the amount of any of the rest of the animals’
He already weighs 3,000lbs and is set to pile on another 650lbs in the next year alone.
That will take him past the current record-holder, his former stablemate The Colonel. He stood 6ft 5ins tall and weighed 3,500lbs.
The Field Marshall will not be fully grown until he is eight and is still the bullock equivalent of a late teenager. But he is already heavier than a Mini Cooper car, which weighs 2,458lbs, and weighs nearly as much as a BMW 3 series (3,053lbs). The white steer was raised by farmer Arthur Duckett, 78, who bought him two years ago and decided to keep him as a pet.
Mr Duckett, of Alstone, near Burnham-on-sea, Somerset, said: "I've been keeping large cattle for 40 years now and I knew as soon as I saw him that he was going to be very large. He is already heavier than the average car. When he gets angry he can do some real damage, although he is very good tempered."
The Field Marshall shares a 22-acre field with a 5ft 6in tall Highland steer called The Captain and a small fresian named Hamish.
Mr Duckett said: "Field Marshall is not fed a special diet but he does eat a mixture of barley, maize and sugar beet.
"But he eats twice the amount of any of the rest of the animals. A whopping 17lbs of it every day."
Big enough for 500 steaks...
• The Field Marshall stands 6ft 3ins tall and weighs1.5 tons
• Is twice as heavy and 8ins higher than the average bull or bullock
• Has to be weighed in a lorry because he is too big for conventional cattle scales
• Eats his way through 17lbs of oats, barley, maize, sugar beet pulp and beef nuts a day
• Is big enough to provide around 2,000lb of meat - 500 steaks or 16,000 sausages
• Cannot be used for breeding because he has been castrated
