(Audubon) The largest bull in the entire state of Iowa is named Albert and lives in Audubon.
No, we aren’t talking about the giant statue in the park. This particular Albert is owned by Randy and Crystal Dreher and consumed approximately 90 pounds of feed and 15 gallons of water per day. The 3,042 pounder from Dreher Angus is the 2022 winner of the Iowa State Fair’s “Super Bull” contest.
“We’ve had cattle for many, many years and sold bulls, but in the past we haven’t had anything that would have been able to do that. We entered him last year. It was a bull we sold to a customer and then bought back when they were done using him. He came to the fair last year and got second, a little bit under 2,890 pounds. We fed him since last fair until this fair and added about 150 pounds to his weight to get him to where he is today.”
Randy Dreher was asked what Albert ate, “A lot. The goal is just to get him to eat food in general. Like any animal, calories will get you there. The diet consists of corn, protein, oats, and hay. Nothing real fancy or any specialty ingredients. Just the fact of keeping his consumption high.”
Dreher reports the whole experience brought with it a lot of interaction with fair attendees. “One thing that’s interesting to me and I find value in is engaging with the public about Albert. Fair goers are very diverse from very knowledgeable about agriculture to very little experience.” Dreher says, “I’ve spent hours and hours talking to people about Albert.” Dreher says he explained several topics that farmers do every day, “But we don’t really think it’s that big of a deal or talk about it much. To the public those are topics they don’t engage much about, so it is an interesting opportunity for them to engage with the producer about some of the meat products they eat, where it comes from, how we make breeding decisions, and the things we do on the farm.”
Albert, who 5 1/2 year old, was the final of four bulls to weigh in on Thursday, August 11th. When 3,042 pounds flashed on the scale the Dreher’s knew they were champs.
Randy Dreher:
