This Piece was written by someone with a bit of brain and a lot of time on his hands.... Its a good laugh.... Enjoy

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Roping A Blue Wildebeest

(Names have been removed to protect the stupid)

I had this idea that I was going to rope a Blue Wildebeest, put it in a stall, feed it up on corn for a couple of weeks, then kill it and eat it.

The first step in this adventure was getting a Blue Wildebeest. I figured that, since they congregate at my cattle feeder and do not seem to have much fear of me when we are there (a bold one will sometimes come right up and sniff at the bags of feed while I am in the back of the bakkie not 4 feet away), it should not be difficult to rope one, get up to it and toss a bag over its head (to calm it down) then hog tie it and transport it home.

I filled the cattle feeder then hid down at the end with my rope. The cattle, having seen the roping thing before, stayed well back. They were not having any of it.

After about 20 minutes, my Blue Wildebeest showed up -- 3 of them. I picked out a likely looking one, stepped out from the end of the feeder, and threw my rope. The Blue Wildebeest just stood there and stared at me.

I wrapped the rope around my waist and twisted the end so I would have a good hold. The Blue Wildebeest still just stood and stared at me, but you could tell it was mildly concerned about the whole rope situation.

I took a step towards it...took a step away. I put a little tension on the rope and then received an education.

The first thing that I learned is that, while a Blue Wildebeest may just stand there looking at you funny while you rope it, they are spurred to action when you start pulling on that rope.

That Blue Wildebeest EXPLODED.

The second thing I learned is that pound for pound, a Blue Wildebeest is a LOT stronger than a cow or a colt. A cow or a colt in that weight range I could fight down with a rope and with some dignity.

A Blue Wildebeest-- no chance.

That thing ran and bucked and twisted and pulled. There was no controlling it and certainly no getting close to it. As it jerked me off my feet and started dragging me across the ground, it occurred to me that having a Blue Wildebeest on a rope was not nearly as good an idea as I had originally imagined.

The only upside is that they do not have as much stamina as many other animals.

A brief 10 minutes later, it was tired and not nearly as quick to jerk me off my feet and drag me when I managed to get up. It took me a few minutes to realize this, since I was mostly blinded by the blood flowing out of the big gash in my head. At that point, I had lost my taste for corn-fed venison. I just wanted to get that devil creature off the end of that rope.

I figured if I just let it go with the rope hanging around its neck, it would likely die slow and painfully somewhere. At the time, there was no love at all between me and that Blue Wildebeest. At that moment, I hated the thing, and I would venture a guess that the feeling was mutual.

Despite the gash in my head and the several large knots where I had cleverly arrested the Blue Wildebeest's momentum by bracing my head against various large rocks as it dragged me across the ground, I could still think clearly enough to recognize that there was a small chance that I shared some tiny amount of responsibility for the situation we were in, so I didn't want the Blue Wildebeest to have to suffer a slow death, so I managed to get it lined back up in between my bakkie and the feeder - a little trap I had set before hand...kind of like a squeeze chute.

I got it to back in there and I started moving up so I could get my rope back.

Did you know that Blue Wildebeest bite? They do! I never in a million years would have thought that a Blue Wildebeest would bite somebody, so I was very surprised when I reached up there to grab that rope and the Blue Wildebeest grabbed hold of my wrist.

Now, when a Blue Wildebeest bites you, it is not like being bit by a horse where they just bite you and then let go. A Blue Wildebeest bites you and shakes its head --almost like a pit bull. They bite HARD and it hurts.

The proper thing to do when a Blue Wildebeest bites you is probably to freeze and draw back slowly. I tried screaming and shaking instead. My method was ineffective. It seems like the Blue Wildebeest was biting and shaking for several minutes, but it was likely only several seconds.

I, being smarter than a Blue Wildebeest (though you may be questioning that claim by now), tricked it. While I kept it busy tearing the tendons out of my right arm, I reached up with my left hand and pulled that rope loose. That was when I got my final lesson in Blue Wildebeest behaviour for the day.

Blue Wildebeest will strike at you with their front feet. They rear right up on their back feet and strike right about head and shoulder level, and their hooves are surprisingly sharp. I learned a long time ago that, when an animal -- like a horse --strikes at you with their hooves and you can't get away easily, the best thing to do is try to make a loud noise and make an aggressive move towards the animal. This will usually cause them to back down a bit so you can escape.

This was not a horse. This was a Blue Wildebeest, so obviously, such trickery would not work. In the course of a millisecond, I devised a different strategy. I screamed like a woman and tried to turn and run.

The reason I had always been told NOT to try to turn and run from a horse that paws at you is that there is a good chance that it will hit you in the back of the head. Blue Wildebeest may not be so different from horses after all, besides being twice as strong and 3 times as evil, because the second I turned to run, it hit me right in the back of the head and knocked me down.

Now, when a Blue Wildebeest paws at you and knocks you down, it does not immediately leave. I suspect it does not recognize that the danger has passed. What they do instead is paw your back and jump up and down on you while you are laying there crying like a little girl and covering your head.

I finally managed to crawl under the bakkie and the Blue Wildebeest went away.

So now I know why when people go Blue Wildebeest hunting they bring a rifle with a scope to sort of even the odds.

great story

I've seen the very same story posted a couple of times only in that story, rather than a Blue Wildebeest, it was a Whitetail Deer in Texas.

I think that he forgot to mention too is that wildebeest have horns and will use them before their hooves! I am surprised he had any energy left after being dragged through prickly pears, rocks, etc. They might tire quickly, but probably not as quickly as you would tire from blood-loss! Entertaining story none the less.

That's the funniest thing I have seen on AR. I hope Walter recovers soon!

They're not mean at all, just look at this one...

A good laugh, just goes to show that notn all farmers are as tough as they would like us to believe hehehe