One of the attractions at the 89th International Agricultural Fair is Veliša the bull. He will undoubtedly be the heaviest head of cattle, because he weighs 1,700 kg. Veliša is a Simmental bull from the Salaš Crnobarski, which belongs to the BRAĆA JEREMIĆ farm in the municipality of Bogatić.
He has been living on this farm for almost four years and his owner Radenko Jeremić says that two years ago he also had the heaviest bull, Mališa, who was slightly heavier than this year’s champion.
– Bulls stop growing at the age of five, so Veliša might grow a bit more. It all depends on his health, Jeremić claims, adding that nobody is interested in buying him, since it is not profitable to breed bulls. – There are no buyers, everyone is just asking about the price, they all want to buy from slaughterhouses. Bulls now cost EUR 3.10 per one kilogram, but only few people are interested in breeding them, because it’s a very expensive project. That’s why Veliša attends exhibition such as this fair, to show off and to let people see him, even though the costs of feeding and looking after him are high.
On average, Veliša consumes around 10 kilograms of concentrate and he eats together with the other cattle. However, Jeremić believes that Mališa used to eat more than this year’s champion.
It is worth mentioning that the BRAĆA JEREMIĆ farm is currently breeding up to 400 calves, which will be sold eventually.
– I’ve been in this business for as long as I can remember. As a boy, I had two head, then four and for the past ten-odd years, we’ve had around 400 head, which is roughly the number of calves we have at the moment, since the situation is difficult, the proud owner of Veliša concluded.
