The traveling salesman peddled freeze-dried seed of champion livestock. He advocated scientific animal husbandry through artificial insemination. He displayed to the farmer brochures and flip-charts of stalwart ungulates, prize poultry – heroic examples of malehood.
“Why house and feed the stud?” the salesman asked rhetorically. “Why clean up his shit and tolerate his whims? For a fraction of the cost and bother, you can buy his semen. A higher quality semen than what your run-of-the-mill dick ejaculates. Olympic quality.”
The farmer agreed. It was a wise move. He needed to modernize his operation.
Thus Bull (accompanied by Boar and Ram, not previously introduced) went to auction. Billygoat went to the glue factory, along with the two ass carcasses. Rooster landed in the stewpot, and a bitter meal he made.
The farm became a hive of efficient, female workers.
The holey bucket, mired in the midden, rusted back to its elements, which is the true end of every story.
If this were told as legend, then the holey bucket would have ascended into the night sky where it might shine forever as a star, a beacon, within its own constellation of hope. Alas, no such luck. This is a fable.
Ecclesiastes 2:16 — And how dieth the wise man? As the fool.
The End.