Farmer uses handsaw to rescue calf stuck in tree

An inquisitive calf got more than he bargained for when he went to check out a tree on the edge of his field, and had to be freed by a farmer using a handsaw after getting wedged between two branches.

The Beef Shorthorn calf wandered into trouble on Ian Sadler’s farm in Kinver, near Stourbridge in the West Midlands.

Mr Sadler was able to free the calf, who sauntered off unharmed to reunite with his mother and have a drink.

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“I saw the calf over by the fence and he had pinched himself in the hedge, I tried to free him by hand but couldn’t so I went and got a handsaw to cut the branch and free him,” Mr Sadler said.

The farmer said he had freed livestock from feed troughs before, but never a tree.

“It was fairly simple and straightforward, it was just one of those freak things. He was fine, he had gone forward and the natural thing is to go back and he’d wedged himself in the V.”

© Ian Sadler

The calf is part of Mr Sadler’s Beef Shorthorn suckler herd on the mixed farm, where he also runs a flock of sheep. The 142ha is split between maize and grassland.

The farm runs a maize maze for the public, and has a shop selling local produce.

A few years ago, a curious cow on a farm in Chiddingstone, Kent, had to be cut free from the base of an oak tree in a precarious hour-long operation after getting her head stuck.

The inquisitive Charolais, Vexour Goldie, walked away as if nothing had happened.