Steak - Mark Schatzker [45]
CHAPTER THREE
SCOTLAND
The window of time in which to place an artificial vagina on the erect penis of a pedigree bull is narrow. When the penis emerges from the bull’s furry sheath, no more than two or three seconds pass—four, tops—before the bull ejaculates or loses interest and dismounts. That gives Jim Cameron somewhere between one and two seconds to crouch underneath the two-thousand-pound animal and then another second to take the artificial vagina he is holding in his right hand—which, minutes earlier, he filled with warm tap water to make it feel more, how to put it, vaginesque—and aim the open end onto the penis, which is thrusting, and intercept the spurt of semen. That’s the difficult part. Once the penis is inside the artificial vagina, it all goes quickly. There is one thrust, maybe two, and the work is complete.
It is dangerous work. During collections, a bull can lose his footing and fall on the man crouching beneath him. In more than thirty years of semen collecting, this has happened to Cameron once, in 1985, when he was collecting from a dairy bull. “He fell right across me legs,” Cameron remembers, “and I tore cartilage in both knees.” The injury required two operations, and now when Cameron flexes his stiff knees, the bones scrape against one another. The bull was fine.
It is, therefore, the stoicism of the Scots talking when Jim Cameron tells you, “Semen collecting is easier than it looks.” On a cool and overcast summer morning at Spylaw Stud Farm, in southern Scotland, just next to a handsome little town called Kelso, Cameron took me inside a barn and demonstrated. Tied to one railing was the “teaser steer,” Big Al, staring at the wall, presenting his rump for all the world to admire. Tied to a railing on the opposite wall stood two big bulls, shifting their weight from hoof to hoof and casting the occasional glance back at Big Al and his big rump. Haltcliffe Braveheart was thick and rippled with muscle, but not as tall as the bull next to him, Roundhill Cramses, who was also longer, but not as muscular, though superbly built nevertheless.
A farmhand walked over and untied Roundhill Cramses. It was time. The big bull lumbered over to Big Al, sniffed the apex of his rump, jumped up on his hind legs, and grasped Big Al’s ampleness with his front legs. He held the position for a tension-filled second but did not thrust, and just as the act teetered on the verge of resolution, Roundhill Cramses slid off, his hooves clacking on the concrete floor as he walked away. This is called a false mount, and it was all part of the plan. “It helps to get the sperm livened up,” Cameron explained.
The benefit of using a teaser steer—a castrated male who gets humped an awful lot—is that the bull cannot accidentally impregnate it and, in so doing, contract VD. With heifers and cows, this is a legitimate risk. But since bulls are not, generally, in the habit of mounting steers, they need to learn how. When a pedigree bull attends his first semen collection, he just stands there and watches. Veteran donors have the know-how, but they still need to be put in the mood. That is why bulls are tied up next to one another: it gets them excited.
The farmhand walked Roundhill Cramses toward the opposite wall, then circled back to Big Al’s rump. The bull mounted again, and this time Cameron crouched down. When Roundhill Cramses’ penis emerged from its hide-covered sheath, Cameron popped the artificial vagina on top of it and held it there. Intercourse, if it can be called that, lasted three seconds—there was a weak thrust, then a more pronounced one, and it was over. Roundhill Cramses dismounted, and Cameron slapped his flank and said, “Good lad.” Big Al just stood there.
Cameron turned his attention to the artificial vagina. It consists of two parts: a hard outer shell, which looks like a one-foot length of black PVC pipe, and a disposable latex inner lining, which