Meet the Cows

Everybody at the home pasture.

This is Dreadlocks or "Miss D" so named because she had a penchant for finding burdocks and making a matted mess of her hair when she was younger. She is descended from a cow named Clarabelle that we had when I was a kid. She is also very even tempered.

  

This is Gigi. She is an Angus/Hereford cross. I bought her a few years ago.  She is the herd or bossy cow, dominant over all the other cows.

This is Grapeleaf. So named because she used to hang around a grape vine we have near the pasture and mooch grape leaves. Her roots also go way back in the herd. She is kind of wild and obnoxious and dangerous in certain situations so I always try to keep an eye on her. She calves every year like clockwork though and without any problems which is why I keep her around. 

This is Tip. So named because he is all red except for the tip of his tail. He is Grapeleaf's calf from last year. 

This is Grapeleaf's calf from this year.

                                   

This is Miss D's calf from last year. Miss D calves quite a bit later than the others which is why this one is so small.

This is Harley and Racer who were introduced earlier. Racer is Gigi's first calf. Racer is kind of saucy and reminds me a lot of another cow we had named Heiferlumps. 

This is the newest addition to the herd, Gigi's calf from this year born 2 weeks ago. Though he is solid black like an Angus, the slightly drooping ears and head shape remind me of some Herefords I have seen. I named him Flopsy because of his slightly drooping ears. 

This would be Lil' Blackie, the new herd bull. He is a kind of rambunctious knothead. I would have preferred to have his brother, Mister Blackie (who looked a lot like him with a much sweeter personality) but this didn't happen.

Babysitting. I don't know if this is actually what they are doing, but quite often the new calves kind of cluster together while one of the older cows remains nearby and the rest of the herd moves off to another area.

Miss D gets a scratching between the shoulder blades.

                                       

Turkey vulture. One of the hangers on in the pasture. They really like haying season.

My first word was cow. My dad and a good friend that he grew up with owned cows together since I was small. This friend eventually gave his share of the cows to my dad and when my dad died, I kind of inherited the herd though they were all in my mom’s name.

Even though I grew up around cows my whole life, I learned a lot about them since I was the one responsible for their upkeep. I still have a lot to learn.

The misconception that cows are stupid is one I discovered early on. Cows are not stupid. However, they are cows and one should expect them to think and act like cows not humans or trick horses. And they are apt to be pretty stubborn about things.

Though cows are quite rough and abrupt with each other, they also groom each other and take care of one another’s calves to some degree. They will watch out for another cow’s calf but not nurse it.

When I was a kid, there were lots of us kids to help handle the cows. Now it is pretty much me and my wife and mom. I have made most of the cows pets because they are much easier to handle this way. I don’t have to chase them as much. I get away with this because they are a fairly gentle breeds—Herefords and Angus and I try to select individuals with gentle dispositions. This is not to say that they are not dangerous. They are. Not because they are mean but because they are just a lot bigger than most humans and can easily hurt you without intending to. I understand some other breeds tend to have more aggressive or mean dispositions as a general rule.

Like I mentioned before, I don’t claim to be any kind of cow expert and I know there are things I could be doing better with the herd but don’t have the time and resources at the moment. The cows are a blessing and a curse. I like pastoral settings but handling and providing for the cows can be a lot of work and a lot of responsibility. I usually end up threatening to get rid of them several times a year.