A Scottish bull with a very itchy butt caused a bit of trouble in South Lanarkshire recently after his attempt to scratch himself on an electric pole led to a transporter box falling down, knocking out electricity in more than 800 local homes. Ron, who’s four years old, was lucky to escape unharmed!
- It all happened on the night of May 7. The incident in question is believed to have happened between 10 p.m. and 11 p.m. on Thursday, May 7, at East Shawtonhill Farm in Chapelton. Ron, who’s a Limousin bull, certainly didn’t mean to cause such chaos, no doubt. His butt was just itchy!
- Power was restored early the next morning. According to Unilad, Ron’s owner Hazel Laughton said that homes in the villages of Chapelton, Strathaven, and Glassford were all affected and that power returned by about 4 a.m. the next morning while most residents were still in bed. No harm done!
- Ron posted an apology on Facebook. On behalf of Ron, Laughton posted an apology to the people in the village, writing, “Our bull Ron would like to apologize to everyone in CHapelton and Strathaven for causing last night’s power cut to over 700 homes!! He had a itchy bum so he scratched it on the electricity pole and knocked the transformer box off!” She added, “He’s just happy to be alive this morning after somehoe escaping 11,000 volts and a large bump on the head! Think we will rename him ‘Sparky’!”
- Apparently, bulls with itchy butts are a common occurrence. As Laughton told BBC Scotland, bulls get itchy when they have their winter coats on, especially in their backsides. “Ron weighs over a ton so he has been rubbing and pushing against this pole and just knocked it off. We have seen them shake the wires before when they do it but for the box to come off is completely new,” she explained. “We got up around 06:00 and we saw a big generator sitting at the bottom of our road, all linked up to the poles. We thought that was a bit strange. We went up to feed our cows and it was my husband that noticed the transformer box had been knocked off the pole. We put two and two together and realized our bull had been scratching against the telegraph pole and he had knocked the box off the pole. All the wires were down in the field as well.”
- Don’t worry, Ron won’t do the same again. Laughton and her husband Greg are working on fencing the area in question off so that Ron can’t get to it again. Good thinking!
