Patrick Tucker, The Koondrook and Barham Bridge Newspaper

Murrabit farmer Simon Morton was left scratching his head last weekend when he discovered his bull Speckles stuck in the verandah decking.

Mr Morton said ‘Speckles’ had been having a rough time of it in the paddock.

“For the last few days before it happened, the other bulls had been ganging up on him,” he said.

“They were in the paddock not far from the house and kept fighting, even to the point of breaking fences.

“I’d already fixed the fence twice, and they pushed him through it again.

“I thought I’d just leave him out overnight in the house driveway because he’s a very friendly bull.”

But when it came time to put Speckles back in the paddock, he had other plans.

“I fed the cattle on Saturday morning and was about to head to football,” he said. “I thought I’d put Speckles back in the paddock so he didn’t get into trouble while I was away.

“I pulled the motorbike in and heard this crack. I thought it might just be rubbing on a tree or something.

When I walked around the corner, there he was, stuck in the deck.”

Mr Morton admitted his mind immediately jumped to a story he’d heard years earlier involving a bull that smashed eight windows after wandering into a house yard.

“I was thinking, ‘Oh no, this is what’s going to happen’. But it wasn’t the case,” he said.

“I think Speckles was trying to get back to the mob he was with, which was on the other side of the house.

He just thought he’d take a shortcut across the deck.

He got a couple of metres before he put a hole in it and then he was just trying to get out.”

Despite the sight of a bull wedged in the verandah, Mr Morton managed to see the funny side.

“I found it humorous, there’s no doubt about it, but I was also thinking, ‘How am I going to get him out without wrecking too much of the house and without hurting him?'”

Time was also working against him.

“I only had about 45 minutes because my daughter had netball and we had football, so I didn’t have much time.”

Mr Morton said he rang his father, who was about to head off on holiday.

“He parked the car and came down to help. In the end, it actually wasn’t that hard.”

The rescue turned out to be surprisingly straightforward.

“I put a snatch strap around his neck and used the motorbike to pull him sideways a little bit and straighten him up so he couldn’t go through the glass,” he said.

“Then I got a crowbar and pulled up some decking boards.

Once I’d straightened him up, he only had about a metre to go to reach the edge of the deck.

I got behind him and gave him a bit of a jab in the ribs and said, ‘Come on mate’, and he crawled out.

It only took about 20 minutes.”

Apart from a few holes in the decking, both house and Speckles escaped relatively unscathed.

“There’s a few holes there. It needs repairing and we’ll have to put some new decking in, but it’s nothing major.

Speckles is completely fine. He wasn’t sore at all. We were very lucky because he’s an extremely quiet bull.”

That quiet nature, Mr Morton said, is part of what makes Speckles special.

“When he was young, he got really sick after eating something bad. I thought he might die,” he said.

“I had some medicine and knew what the problem was, so I nursed him for a couple of days.

Before that, he was just a normal cow and would run away from me like the others. After that, he loved me.

I could walk up and pat him and we’ve been mates ever since.”

Now about seven years old, the placid bull has become a well-known character around the property.

As for whether there is a lesson to be learned from the incident, Mr Morton keeps it simple.

“It’s just one of those things and you’ve just got to laugh it off and fix it up,” he said.

“There wasn’t too much damage done. A bit of decking trouble, but that’s about it.

I think laughing it off is the lesson of the day.

This article appeared in The Koondrook and Barham Bridge Newspaper, 4 June 2026.