A 13-year-old pedigree Brown Swiss has been officially declared as the world’s tallest living steer, as verified by the Guinness World Records.
The bullock, which is named Tommy and is 6ft 1 inch tall, resides on Fred Balawender’s farm in Cheshire, Massachusetts, after he acquired him in 2010 from a dairy farm.
He said, in a video produced by Guinness World Records: “We just had a chance to buy him. I paid 10 dollars for him, and he is worth a lot more money than that now.”
“It is overwhelming when you stand next to him, and look at how tall he is if you are used to cows.”
“I estimate that he is up over 3,000 pounds in weight, which equates to just over 1.36 tonnes. All four legs are holding up at least 750 pounds, so that is a lot of weight.”
“He is like our pet, and everyone knows Tommy. He consumes approximately 30 pounds of dry grain, over 75 pounds of hay, and drinks 35-40 gallons (two bath tubs worth) of water per day.
World’s tallest living steer
His daughter, Laurie Cuevas, said: “Tommy was always large for his age, but Brown Swiss cattle tend to be a little on the large size.”
“He was not too unusual until he got to be about 4 or 5-years-old. That is when we started to realise, he just keeps growing and the more age he got, the larger he got. He never really stopped growing.”
“Tommy is a very calm and kind animal and is very friendly towards children. He loves snacks, so he will always come to you for an apple or a carrot.”
“He is very docile, and we have never had any problems with him being aggressive or anything like that.”
“We have a really large cattle trailer, but he cannot fit in that, so we cannot drive him to a weigh scales to see how much he weighs. He is too big to transport, so we would need an elephant wagon,” she laughed.
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