Pueblo
Will the latest cows in the American craze of miniature animals please stand up? Oops. Sorry.
They are standing up.
They are called mini Zebus. Today we will learn more about these cuddly, mooing critters, an ancient breed of dwarf cattle that are at birth roughly the size of an adult house cat, by addressing the age-old scientific question: How now small cow?
The mini Zebu is a dead ringer for the classic Brahman, the majestic-looking sacred cow of India best known in this country for throwing wide-eyed rodeo cowboys into the fourth row of seats. Like its gigantic cousin, the mini Zebu features a signature hump between the shoulder blades. But a Brahman bull weighs upward of 2,000 pounds. A mini Zebu bull, standing about 40 inches high at the shoulder, checks in at about one-quarter of that weight.
Miniature jokes too
By traditional cattle standards, miniature Zebus are stunningly small. And cute. Quite aware of those facts are a pair of rugged coal miners from western Colorado. And their ranching buddies.
“They make a lot of jokes,” Fred Carson said. “They call us miniature cowboys.”
Carson and Lance Kappel and their wives brought their small-but-growing herds of mini Zebus to the Colorado State Fair, where the pint-sized cattle have been a big hit.
Both men spent much of their lives working traditional cattle ranches. They are now full-time miners and emergency medical technicians for the West Elk Coal company, spending 12-hour days 2,000 feet underground. When they surface, they head home – Carson and wife Cindy to Delta and Lance and wife Pat to the neighboring Colorado town of Austin.
And in those small towns they tend their small herds of small cows. Cows, by the way, that carry the same purchase price as much larger traditional cattle.
“Our friends ask us to invite them over for a $100 hamburger,” Carson said.
But the mini Zebus are not headed for the backyard grill these days. Their value lies in their uniqueness. They are collector’s items. They are pets. And thus, for the moment, the huggable cows are not part of this scenario:
Billy: “Mommy, have you seen little Humpy?”
Mommy: “Uh, I … no.” (Burp).
Carson and Kappel decided earlier this year to step lightly into the world of the mini Zebus. In April they drove to Texas, where the mini Zebu industry is thriving, and came home with two bulls and five cows. Apparently there had already been some horsing around, as calves began arriving in early summer.
Both families say they’ll sell a few of the offspring now – a tiny young bull is available for about $1,500 and a young heifer for about $2,000 – but want to establish two herds of about 20 breeding animals each before they start any serious selling.
Which leads to the obvious question: Selling to whom?
“People with a little bit of land who want their kids involved in raising cattle,” Carson said.
And there is, he was told by the Texas sellers, another market.
“They sell a lot of them to women,” Carson said. “Women with money who just want something different. Something their neighbor doesn’t have.”
There are other reasons, they say, to plop a mini Zebu in your backyard. From a poster headlined “What Are Mini Zebus Good For” that hangs on the fence rails at the two couples’ fair exhibit: “Too much lawn to mow? Mini Zebus make great lawn mowers.” (Although you’ll want to have a shovel and bucket handy when the lawn mower engines “backfire.”)
And the two couples have endured the jokes. Including the miniature cowboy line.
“My friends wanted to know if I’d be herding them on a miniature horse,” Carson said. “And whether I’d have to get some help from a miniature dog.”
He laughed.
“I actually have a miniature dog,” he said. “A miniature Australian shepherd.”
But the jokes are fading.
“To be honest,” said Pat Kappel, “I was a little skeptical. I was afraid out where we live, in cattle country, we’d be a laughingstock.”
Now, she said, some ranching friends want their own mini Zebus.
Fairgoers stumped
Not that the little mooers don’t still cause some confusion. People who ambled up to the pens at the fair were full of questions as they gazed at the four adult and two young mini Zebus. How, one woman asked Cindy Kappel, do you keep them from getting big?
Later, another woman stood and stared. After a minute or two, Ida Morgan of Salt Lake City asked her husband David what they were.
“Brahma bulls,” he incorrectly replied. “They use ’em in rodeos. These must be the small ones they can’t use.”
The Carsons and Kappels smiled. Some day, they hope, everyone will know about the wee cattle. In the meantime, the couples and their unusual livestock are already creating memories.
On the trip home from Texas with the original herd, Lance Kappel put a newborn calf in a dog carrier on the back seat of his pickup. Also in the back seat was his son, Lance Jr., who was 14. Young Lance got sleepy.
“I turn around and Lance has his head inside the dog carrier and had wadded up the blanket inside for a pillow,” his father said. “And the calf laid her head on Lance’s head. The two of them slept that way for hours.”
Staff writer Rich Tosches writes each Wednesday and Sunday. He can be reached at rtosches@denverpost.com.
