When the Cows Come Home

RobS · Nov 12, 2001

This is definitely one of those "you had to be there" stories, but I'll tell it anyway...

My son and I were out at our property with tractor and various hand tools. I was taking down a natural knoll where our driveway will pass through. Had to be back home to meet the sprinkler blow-out guy and that made for a nice lunch break. We packed up a bit, but left the tractor in the field, not an uncommon thing here in farm country.

Did the sprinkler thing, had lunch and rounded up a few other odds and ends to return to the property. Saw my wife returning home as we left, so stopped briefly for a smooch /w3tcompact/icons/wink.gif

As we returned to the property I could see something odd about my trusty 790. The green didn't shine through like it normally does on a sunny autumn day. Did I get it that dirty?

Upon closer inspection we find the little tractor surrounded by six young cows /w3tcompact/icons/laugh.gif As we pull up, they give that "cow look" and walk off a safe distance. There they stood while I phoned my wife and got back to work. She called the sherriff and came out with a camera shortly thereafter. The cows seemed to enjoy the sound of the diesel engine but eventually wandered off through a neighboring corn field.

The sherriff had no reports of missing cattle, but promised to do some calling around. A couple of neighbors had seen them and did some driving around as well. We never heard the outcome, but sure got a chuckle out of our new found friends.

Ah, rural living at it's best /w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif

zenmek · Nov 12, 2001

Have a similar story, here goes... Woke up early one morning (about 4:30am) to a lot of ruckus in he yard, very abnormal as the only things that move around here at that hour are dogs and critters. Well come to find out that the neighbors cows got loose and decided to make a beeline for our place (don't know why!) any way we got them all rounded up and sent home. Later in the day we found a "calling card" right by my daughters window. I guess we had the closest thing to a peepin tom that we will see around here. too bad she didn't wake up ..what a surprise! guess that's the beauty of country living!

JJT · Nov 12, 2001

We have beef cows and the only way to round them up is with the tractor - they think a running diesel means dinner time. They ignore the truck, 4 wheeler and chain saw, but start the tractor up and they come running.

dmccarty · Nov 12, 2001

Rob, consider yourself lucky.....

I worked on a farm when I was 16. The the boss ran about 75 head of cattle. Pesky things. One of the neighbor's dogs when run the cattle and I saw them run through a barbed wire fence more than once. If we had ever found that dog he would never had made it home......

Anyway, one day I was out on the old MF 35 fixing barb wire fence and the herd was off to one side of the field. The critters got curious about what I was doing and wondered over to take a look. I did not have a problem with their visit except that they did two things. One they brought over the bitting flies. And two they pooped all over the place. I think every one of them animals decided to take at least two poops standing around me and the tractor! /w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif They all seemed to have a real bad case of bovine flatulance and squirts. OHHH, what a wonderful smell, Eau D Farm, I suppose. /w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif Course all this made the flies estatic. I finished what I was doing, got on the MF, cranked up the RPMs, put that old collar shift tranny in gear and left them bovine squirters behind. No pun intended! /w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif

Cattle are wierd animals. Very curious but easily spooked. We scared them one day when they were down on some bottom land next to the Ohio river. They spooked and started running. They could not go right since the river was there and we were on top of a dam the boss had built for a pond that he had. The only thing the cattle could do was run straight which is what they did. There were large trees down in their path and they just ran through/over it somehow. I don't know how they did not break legs. Seem to be smart animals but sometimes that herd instinct kicked in and made them real dumb. Interesting animals..... /w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif

Later...
Dan McCarty

Bird · Nov 12, 2001

My neighbor's cows, which also use my pasture, are beef cattle that are never touched by man except to brand, vaccinate, or dehorn, so they're pretty wild. But since he usually keeps a bucket of range cubes in the back end of his Kawaski Mule and in the back of his pickup truck, and puts out hay with the tractor, they get conditioned pretty fast. You can go out in the pasture in that Mule, a pickup truck, or a tractor and you almost have to push them out of the way, but you walk out there on foot and no way you'll ever get within 50' of one of them. He learned to condition them that way because some of them frequently got out and roamed off and it was nearly impossible to drive them back home. Now if one (or more) gets out, he just goes after them on the Kawasaki Mule and they'll follow him anywhere.

Harv · Nov 12, 2001

Seem to be smart animals

Really!!??? /w3tcompact/icons/shocked.gif

On one of the few roundups I ever participated in, I was struck by just the opposite. We'd peel 'em off one at a time in the corral and send them into the chute. The chute was then clamped them in, flipped them off the ground on their sides, at which point they were castrated, de-horned and branded in a matter of seconds. Once back on their feet, an electric prod sent them running out to the fields.

I was dumbfounded to see these things, dripping disinfectant between their legs, spouting blood from their heads and billowing smoke from their haunches, run about 20 yards and come to a screeching halt when they noticed there was grass to eat. /w3tcompact/icons/crazy.gif

Maybe I caught a dumb bunch. /w3tcompact/icons/tongue.gif

p.s. Being a big seafood fan, I was excited to be invited to have some Rocky Mountain oysters that evening. Heard a lot of laughter behind my back later as I walked away from the dinner table (without eating). /w3tcompact/icons/tongue.gif

dmccarty · Nov 13, 2001

Harv,

Yeah, "Smart" is a tough word when applied to cattle. They were always curious about what we where doing and curiosity is supposed to be a sign of intelligence. There "stupid" side seemed to be the herd mentality. /w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif

" I was dumbfounded to see these things, dripping disinfectant between their legs,
spouting blood from their heads and billowing smoke from their haunches, run about 20
yards and come to a screeching halt when they noticed there was grass to eat. "

Let me get this straight. The poor animal just got flipped up in the air, horns cut off, bull hood removed, stinging stuff sprayed on their wounds, burned on the thigh and then shocked in the ass. Sounds like a REAL bad hair day! /w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif

The poor old EX bull runs into the pasture after getting prodded in the rear and says, "What more do I have to live for? They took my horns, my balls and burned my ass! I got nothing to play with anymore! What more is there? Hmmmm, Grass." So ExBull commences to eating. Its the only thing they have left in life! /w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif Seems like a mark of intelligence to me! ExBull Figured out they had just been given a bad turn or two, accepted the fact, figured out the only thing left in life was to just eat, and got on with it! No analyzing, no worry, no second guessing, no blame, no trip to the shrink, just start eating the ol' grass.... Its the only thing left... /w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif Hey, Big BO, is the grass greener over there? Hey, wait up, don't run so fast! /w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif

Seems like a high form of intelligence and maturity to me! /w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif

Later...
Dan McCarty

MossRoad · Nov 13, 2001

Rob. Mooo. Great weather this weekend, eh? Except for all the leaf smoke, it was great.

 MossRoad

MossRoad · Nov 13, 2001

You start up a diesel in a field and the cows come running.
You start up a diesel in a parking lot and we come running.
I'd say, on that level, cows are our equals.

 MossRoad

RobS · Nov 13, 2001

Yeah, it was an excellent weekend with more to come it looks like. I thought burning leaves was outlawed since they do the pickup thing? Maybe that's just in the city? I did see where they are going to divert some of the leaf crews to picking up storm damage debris for the next few days. I still can't believe all the trees down around here. Maybe those cows found a way out from a tree across the fence /w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif