Beaver County farm looking for runaway show steer

HOOKSTOWN, Pa. (KDKA) — A Beaver County family is searching desperately for a cow they were preparing to show at a fair next year.

"It's been quite a week, I will say," said Ashley Thompson from Thompson's Family Farms. "It's something we hoped wouldn't happen."

Seven days ago, the farm's steer Speck got spooked getting off a trailer and ran.

"He just took off," Thompson said. "My son tried to hold on to the halter, he got kicked in the thigh from the steer itself and it took off up our property."

Now they're searching everywhere.

"We did have a person come out with her drone from Pittsburgh Drone and Pet Rescue. She's covered 10 miles out from us, so it's a big radius to look through," Thompson said.

But the search is coming up dry. Their son has spent months raising and preparing Speck to be shown at the Hookstown Fair next year.

"My son, he  does put a lot of work into it," Thompson said. "He's out there walking it, giving it a bath, washing it every day. It's a lot. They watch it grow up, they take care of it. It's a lot of responsibility."

Thompson says there's also another major loss if they can't find Speck.

"My son's bummed because his money that he used, he got last year for his showing, he paid for this steer, so now we've got to come up with more money to get him another one if this one doesn't come back," Thompson said. 

If you have a trail camera or live around Hopewell, Clinton or Hanover and have seen Speck, send a message to the Thompson's Family Farms Facebook page.

"He's mostly going to look for water and other animals if they have them. I know the person that we did get him off of said if there's other cows in the area, he should go to them or if there's horses, he should go to them because he's familiar with those. But any kind of water — fields, pretty much he'll stick in to get the grass. So that's what I'd say to search for," Thompson said.