I’m often surprised about what qualifies as an entry in the Guiness Book of World Records.
Things like the person who can crush the most watermelons with their forehead in 60 seconds make me think, “Really? Who comes up with this idea?”
Who has time or especially enough melons to train for and perfect this skill or talent that will likely, probably, for sure never have any useful purpose in life beyond possibly being a world record. But then what kind of thinking is involved by the next person who has the desire to break that world record? It’s scary to contemplate, really. Now we have at least two people with very dubious missions in life.
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Mind you, I am not adverse to admiring records of accomplishment. A few years ago I attended the Chandler Ostrich Festival in Arizona (one of the major agricultural attractions in North America that’s now off my bucket list), and I did pay $1 to see a giant pig – Harley, a 1,300-pound long haired, black belted boar. At the same show, I paid another $1 to see Big Joe – a 2,000-pound Percheron gelding. They were just big. I don’t think they set any records. And it was good that admission was only $1 because the experience was somewhat underwhelming.
And five years ago, I was working on a wheat yield story and connected with Eric Watson of Ashburton, New Zealand, who produced, with assistance from Bayer Crop Science, a world record irrigated wheat yield of 258.8 bushels per acre in 2020. However, that yield may have been eclipsed since then, as I see online that Tim Lamyman of Louth Lincolnshire, U.K., had a record wheat yield of about 266 bu./ac. in 2022. Both yields are impressive.
So perhaps I shouldn’t have been surprised to recently learn that the tallest steer in the world lives right here in Alberta. Unlike wheat yields or growing the largest pumpkin in the world, Jasmine Entz of Vulcan County, about one and a half hours south of Calgary, didn’t set out to raise the tallest steer. It just happened.
Jasmine and her husband Gideon live on an acreage in Vulcan County. They raise and sell Nigerian dwarf dairy goats and have a herd of about 50 head. They both work off the acreage as well.
Jasmine has the world record for owning the tallest living steer — an eight-year-old Holstein steer called Beef. A friend had pointed out in 2023, that the tallest steer on record at that time was 1.85 metres tall and Beef as a six-year-old was already taller than that. Jasmine decided to fill out the paperwork for the world record. When Beef was officially measured in 2023, he stood six feet three inches (1.95 m) at the front shoulder. That qualified for an entry in the Guiness World Records published in 2026. In the last couple years, since that measurement, Beef has grown even more standing about six foot five, and weighing about 2,500 pounds. The record is for being the tallest, not the heaviest.
This wasn’t a planned world record entry. Jasmine manages calves for a dairy farm near Picture Butte and while working for this dairy in 2017 asked the owner if she could get a bull calf to raise as a pet.
“I wanted a steer I could raise and eventually ride,” she says. Some people want a pony, but Jasmine was looking to ride a Holstein steer.
The calf that became the world record setting Beef had no special entry in the world. Jasmine says he weighed about 80 pounds at birth, and was raised on a pretty standard calf ration.
“He’s never had any special treatment or feed, but just was a calf that grew,” she says.
When Beef was about two-year-olds she did outfit him with a standard saddle, broke and and rode him for a while, although eventually he outgrew the rigging. A Holstein just doesn’t have the properly designed withers for holding a saddle.
So Beef outgrew his saddle steer days and according to Jasmine, now he is affectionately regarded as “just a big yard dog.”
Fortunately, Beef needs no special diet, but unfortunately even feeding him hay is an expensive proposition. He eats about 45 kilograms of hay per day, which cost Jasmine about $400 per month.
“He’s just a big gentle giant, a very calm steer, and I have no plans to ever eat him,” she says. “As long as his body holds out, he is welcome to be here as just a big freeloader.”
Jasmine is planning to keep her day job to support her kind heartedness. Along with Beef, the acreage is also home to a retired dairy cow named Josie and standardbred mare named Talent.
However, if you are looking for smaller easy keeping dairy goats, check out the acreage website at: www.triplehnigerians.com
The story about Beef the giant steer has sort of inspired me to think about what I might qualify for in terms of a world record. If I live long enough someday I might qualify as the world’s oldest living farm writer who still has most of his faculties. I don’t want to set the bar too high. Maybe they could create a category for the writer who has been working the longest – 50 some years — to clean up his desk.
Or how about the home gardener who spends $200 on bedding plants to harvest about $20 worth of vegetables. That kind of repeat behaviour has to qualify for some kind recognition.
