The cow thread

I once stayed for a brief while on a relatively famous farm belonging to a family named Evans... I would get up each morning and walk to a fence to be greeted by cows. I'd stroke their heads, twirl their cowlicks (haha), and talk to them.

The folks that I was staying with assured me they were dairy cows, not headed for slaughter. I learned much later that those folks lied to me to protect my feelings. /-;cow - evans.jpg​
 

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Bonnie said:
Grew up on a large dairy farm, but of all the animals around, I never bonded with any of the cows.... :)
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Maybe "bonding" isn't the right word to describe the relationship between a cattle owner and some steers or heifers, but some can become extraordinarily tame if handled well every day by someone who knows what they're doing!

I've an irresistible photo to post, (if I can anonymise the faces of the family to avoid criticisms their permission wasn't saught, though mum and dad were nearby).
 
As a kid we had some cattle and I also worked for neighboring farms so have a fair bit of experience.

My one neighbor had dairy cows and the outside of their barn had a hugh concrete area where the cows were staged before heading into the for milking. The concrete would get all mucked up from manure and we would grab cows by the tail and ski across the pad, until his dad caught us.

Another cow story....my son lives in Colorado and he and his buddies like to go off grid camping. He said the came across a steer while they were hiking and it started chasing them, at first he said they were laughing and goofing around but it wouldn't leave them alone and was very agitated and aggressive. They ended spending a couple of hours in trees until the thing went away. You expect moose or bear or even a mountain lion, but he said he never thought he would be trees by a cow.
 
My Maternal grandparents supported themselves with a dairy herd. I spent many summers helping out on their farm. None of my experiences there inspired any admiration for bovine intelligence.

Calves are cute but to quote someone or other, to a cow the entire world is a bathroom and fences are intended to be broken down....especially if there is a highway on the other side and it's the middle of the night.
 
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I worked on a small 2000 acre cattle/sheep farm in Esperance Western Australia - late 80's.
150 Simmental, one Bull. 500 sheep.
The farm was solely run by a lady in her 60's at the time.
I remember one calving time we had to tie a rope to the unborn calf, hook the rope to the jeep and slowly pull the calf into the world.
Even then, I had to stand on the rope and jump up and down to edge the calf out.

Whilst I was mending the cattle yard fencing, for what ever reason the pen gate had been left open. While I was going about my business I heard scraping on the ground and when I looked around, the 1200kg Bull was pawing the ground, telling me he was unhappy I was invading his space.
I slowly rose and climbed over the fence away from that menacing bull
 
I worked on a huge farm my last 3 years of high school. We had a beef herd and a dairy herd. I cleaned the milking parlors and did the dirty work, like cleaning the stalls. The owner was a real business man. He not only owned his huge farm, but during my second year on the farm, he bought the farm next to his. Don’t quote me on this, but I think he ended up with 3-4,000 acres. We also planted corn, soybeans, hay and some smaller crops of potatoes, tobacco and wheat and straw. I loved every day of working on the farm.

I named a few of the cows and heifers. I also named the one bull Satan. He couldn’t be trusted. I think the ring in his nose kind of upset him, especially when we would move him and have to use it to get him to get going.

When I would go home after a day’s work on the farm, my mom made me undress outside. I had to keep my boots also outside. When I would take my clothes off, I put them into a burlap bag and let them sit outside until mom did the wash. She would wash my clothes separate from the other clothes that needed to be washed.

A quick funny story. Some of the chickens ran wild, others would be in the henhouses. When we would have too many chickens or some would get old, you could tell their age by their leg band or their faded color, the boss would tell us if we wanted some for eating to take a couple. My mom knew about this and would ask me why I never brought any chickens home. I told her that I just couldn’t kill them because I knew them and had names for most of them. There was no way I could eat them. I had this one chicken I named Henrietta. She was an older Rhode Island Red. I came back to work after being off for a day and I didn’t see her. I asked the other guys where was Henrietta. The one hand told me that Paul took her home. I felt sick to my stomach, but when I found out that the guys hid her from me, it really changed my attitude. OK, so they had a good laugh and I had to laugh along with them too or I wouldn’t have heard the worst of it.
 
I happen to like cows .... Out west riding through the Bitteroot range during the 2000? wild fires , I came upon one. She was standing right on the road center line .... poor thing looked like it was in shock. Still had smoke coming off her rump-flanks. I took some water I had with me, and a rag and tried to cool that area , and gave her the two bottles I had to drink ........ man-oh-man did she lap that up. I was out of water, so my riding [motorcycle] buddy Carl pulled up and gave her his two bottles ...... I'm sure she did OK, just felt so bad for her.
 
In the midst of some pretty wild forest fires, one late summer at our mountain cabin, some ranchers let their cattle go.

They moseyed onto our parcel
There were around a couple dozen head, all following each other down the logging road toward our bathing trough
'
I called them slow elk'

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911 said:
I worked on a huge farm my last 3 years of high school. We had a beef herd and a dairy herd. I cleaned the milking parlors and did the dirty work, like cleaning the stalls. The owner was a real business man. He not only owned his huge farm, but during my second year on the farm, he bought the farm next to his. Don’t quote me on this, but I think he ended up with 3-4,000 acres. We also planted corn, soybeans, hay and some smaller crops of potatoes, tobacco and wheat and straw. I loved every day of working on the farm.

I named a few of the cows and heifers. I also named the one bull Satan. He couldn’t be trusted. I think the ring in his nose kind of upset him, especially when we would move him and have to use it to get him to get going.

When I would go home after a day’s work on the farm, my mom made me undress outside. I had to keep my boots also outside. When I would take my clothes off, I put them into a burlap bag and let them sit outside until mom did the wash. She would wash my clothes separate from the other clothes that needed to be washed.

A quick funny story. Some of the chickens ran wild, others would be in the henhouses. When we would have too many chickens or some would get old, you could tell their age by their leg band or their faded color, the boss would tell us if we wanted some for eating to take a couple. My mom knew about this and would ask me why I never brought any chickens home. I told her that I just couldn’t kill them because I knew them and had names for most of them. There was no way I could eat them. I had this one chicken I named Henrietta. She was an older Rhode Island Red. I came back to work after being off for a day and I didn’t see her. I asked the other guys where was Henrietta. The one hand told me that Paul took her home. I felt sick to my stomach, but when I found out that the guys hid her from me, it really changed my attitude. OK, so they had a good laugh and I had to laugh along with them too or I wouldn’t have heard the worst of it
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It is great to see you post again. You always brought realism and balance to these discussions. Welcome back.
 
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