“Hi Tommy, the lads said they just saw the bull going up the road.” Words you never want to hear and the news that greeted me when I returned a missed call from a neighbour.

The worst part about getting calls like that is the few minutes it takes you to arrive at the scene of the crime. Those few minutes feel like an eternity and I can never work out if I’m calm or in a state of panic. Regardless, my brain is up to 90. Where are they? What have they done? How will I get them back? What have I got in the car that might help?

Luckily, I was only a few minutes from home. There was no sign of the animal in question when I arrived, so I did a quick lap around the locality.

My neighbour waved me down and informed me the last time he saw the bull, it was wandering up the lane to the guesthouse next door. My face couldn’t have gone a whiter shade of pale, on hearing this at half six on a bank holiday Friday evening.

Thankfully, this was a bull on a mission. He had sauntered up the guesthouse lane, disappeared through the trees and jumped the fence. He proceeded to clear a wire gap and went into the AI group of cows. Drama over.

The offender had been put in a paddock across the road from the main block to facilitate the use of AI.

To prevent him doing anything stupid, a group of late-calving cows were put with him as babysitters. This had worked perfectly in the past. Unfortunately, I have a hurdler on my hands.

The bull in question has come a long way in six months. Last November he suffered a case of photosensitisation. Blinded, he went through wires and I found him thrown out in a neighbour’s field with his legs in the air.

He wasn’t in good enough condition to sell at the time, so the plan was hold him through breeding and see how he got on. He wintered well but I’d still be unsure as to how his fertility will be.

With that in mind, the backup plan is to take the young bull from the heifers to mop up after AI. A chain was put on the ring in his nose to try to curb his enthusiasm a bit.

After running him through the yard, I suspect his eyesight is still affected. He was a bit unsure of his surroundings and was acting like he was blinded again.

But while sight may not be his strong point, there’s nothing wrong with his sense of smell. Another selection of cows were picked out to mind him and he was cordoned off from the main crew again.

It worked initially, as there was no commotion when I brought in cows for AI on Sunday morning. However, I noticed him missing that evening and discovered he had found his way back to the cows.

Since then, he has been in the shed and on a hay diet. I’ll have to get a longer length of chain this time.

Aside from that unwelcome interlude, all is relatively peaceful. Breeding is moving into week four for the heifers and last week AI began at home, while a bull went out with the younger cows on the out farm.

If all goes to plan, the last three weeks of March next year will be fairly hectic.