Gentle giant Herman has no beef with humans

We're talking the Mack truck of livestock, with hooves like hubcaps and haunches the size of your car trunk.He weighs nearly 3,000 pounds and goes by Herman.The beefy black-and-white Holstein spends his days munching on hay and soaking up sun outside the Longstreet Inn and Casino in lonely Amargosa Valley, at the southwestern edge of Nye County near the California line.

When Herman first got here, eight years ago, he was about 4 feet tall. At last measure, he stood 6 feet, 4 inches from hoof to withers. His owner, Jim Marsh, believes Herman may be the tallest steer in the world."He just kept growing and growing," said Marsh, an animal lover and longtime Las Vegas car dealership proprietor known for appearing in commercials with his daughter, Stacy, and his grandson.

Marsh, 78, also is known in small towns and cow counties for being a community booster and historic preservationist. He owns a bunch of rural Nevada properties, including the 60-room Longstreet.Herman was born at a nearby dairy, where he was briefly kept as a pet by one of the workers. He ended up in Beatty, where a friend of Marsh's was fattening up the animal for slaughter.