For help, advice and discussion about stuff not related to aviation. Play nice: no religion, no politics and no axe grinding please.
By The Kissimmee Bum
FLYER Club Member (reader)  FLYER Club Member (reader)
#1911202
TheFarmer wrote:
> 90% of the time they are being inquisitive, and if you stand and face them
> they'll get within a metre of you and stop, and just stare at you. The
> trouble is, as soon as you turn to walk away, they come right up behind you
> and will nudge you. It can be disconcerting. If you walk towards them
> they tend to disperse, albeit temporarily. The best thing to do is to try
> and avoid going near them in the first place, which avoids them coming
> over.
>
> The other 10% of the time, and normally when they have calves at foot, you
> need to be really careful. I've been butted, trampled and pushed up
> against a concrete wall by a young cow who thought I was going to harm her
> calf (I was only trying to give it an ear tag). They will quite literally
> trample you to death if they decide to, and their weight/strength is
> frightening. I escaped by sticking a finger in its eye and limping away to
> the gate before it could find me. I was very lucky indeed.

Frightening beasts indeed to us townies.

A lady near where I live walked into field of cows and was trampled.

She was lucky to get away with a little light grazing.

Sorry..... I've used it before but I just couldn't resist. :wink:
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By Bill McCarthy
#1911223
I forked out for a Simmental bull at the Perth bull sales to put to some Charolais/Fresian cows. I reckon he was drugged in order to subdue him during the period at the sales week. When I got him home, he was a raving lunatic and I couldn’t get into a field that he was in. I thought that I couldn’t let him get the better of me so I got a hefty length of alkathene water pipe, went into the field and waited at the edge for him to come at me, which he did. I gave him an almighty whack on his nose-ring which made him step back a bit, whereupon he charged again and I did an Olympic high jump over the fence. He slid down into the dry ditch and tore the whole side of it to shreds with is head trying to get at me - I went home taking the long way round. Yet, my wife could enter his field without the slightest interest from him.
He very nearly ended it for me one day. Every year we had to do routine testing for brucellosis which meant taking a blood sample from a vein under the tailhead. I had cleaned out the shed and left my little Fergie parked in one corner, out of the way. Cattle tests done successfully and then came the bull’s turn. With much prodding we ran the bull down the race and bliddy hell he broke out. Who did he come after - me. I ran for my life and jumped on to the Fergie and the bulls head hit my back as I climbed the footplate. He played hell with his head to the back wheel of the tractor - if it wasn’t in the corner he would have overturned it like a toy. That Fergie saved my life as I would have been smeared up the wall.
I still have the Fergie but the bull, long gone to burger land !
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By Pete L
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1911225
Bullocks are inquisitive. Indoor and outdoor supplemental feeding regimes don't help - both sexes get used to coming towards anything human expecting a handout.

The hands-wide trick is better with a stick but not always effective.

Got less comfortable with walking through cow pastures over the years.
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By skydriller
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1911251
lobstaboy wrote:
> Dman wrote:
> > Please remember that a field with livestock in is part of a farmers
> > business
> > If you see cattle in a field, especially if they have calves with them,
> > then just think do you really nned to walk through that field,
> > It`s a lot to ask if you expect a farmer not to use fields for livestock
> > just because there is a footpath and someone on a jolly wants to walk
> > through it
> >
> > Rant over
>
> Sorry, no. That's not an acceptable viewpoint. Footpaths are established rights of
> way and the public are legally entitled to use them. There are limitations on how
> they can be used and the quid pro quo is that they should be safe to use. The county
> council is responsible for seeing that this is so.
> https://www.ramblers.org.uk/advice/path ... y-law.aspx
> In particular, note point 6 on the page I've linked to - the path is considered to
> be owned by the highway authority. Not many people realise that.

It is also worth remembering that footpaths were established over a long period of time so that farm workers could walk from their homes to their workplaces in an easy manner, this at a time when fields were much smaller than they are today and so a route that used to skirt a half dozen fields or a wet area, now crosses the middle of a larger drained field. They were not ever intended to be leisure routes to view the countryside as they have become in the last 50 years.
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By Miscellaneous
#1911749
@rikur_, I thought of you yesterday just as I was getting home. If you think this chap can offer some tips I'll let you have his phone number. :wink:

Also motivated by this thread, enroute the airfield the other day I counted 9 cars and a minbus in a lay-by with the occupants lined up taking photographs of cows. :? On this occasion there were not any cars stopped on the main road, however those slowing suddenly to see what was going on were causing a hazard. :D

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By Miscellaneous
#1911754
seanxair wrote:That's what we used call 'Grazing the Long Acre' :D

By that do you mean grazing the road sides? I thought they were just moving them? :?

Part and parcel of country living which I appreciate, mostly. :lol:
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By seanxair
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1911760
Miscellaneous wrote:
seanxair wrote:That's what we used call 'Grazing the Long Acre' :D

By that do you mean grazing the road sides? I thought they were just moving them? :?

Part and parcel of country living which I appreciate, mostly. :lol:


On Irish country roads when I was a boy farmers would move cows back and forward from field to home for milking but it may take an hour or more to cover half a mile while cows grazed the free grass on the verges. It was the '60s and life was gentler....
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By Miscellaneous
#1911766
@seanxair, that's exactly what was happening. :thumright: Life still being gentler in these parts. :D That said there is presently a not insignificant loss of lambs due to motorists in a hurry. :(
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By Pete L
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1911769
Ireland. On visits in the 1970s and 1980s it seemed that any unsold livestock was left to make it's own way home while the farmer drank the proceeds of the sold beasts.
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By eltonioni
#1911783
The longer the horns, the more stupid the cow IME. We have a heard of those shaggy Highland moosers on the hill and they are as thick as two short planks fillet steaks. The belties can be weird but they are only little so they can usually be pushed around and young beef bulls seem ok too . It's the young mum milkers with their babies that seem to be the most unpredictable. I'd still (knowingly) avoid a cow field in the dark though, whatever the breed.
By chevvron
#1913402
Many years ago, I put a Sedbergh glider down in a field containing cows (my own fault, I misjudged my circuit and of course didn't have an engine to 'save' me.). Now cows love the smell of dope and if the get near it, will try to lick it which can cause great damage as they will eventually lick the canvas off.
However a friend of mine happened to have a Jews Harp in his pocket, so he went and sat on a gate twanging it. As has been said above, cows are curious and the noise of the harp effectively lured the cows away from the glider and they stood mesmerised by the noise .
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By defcribed
#1914550
The sage advice, straight from the best film in the world, is:

"Grab its ring"

"Keep your bag up"

"Out-vie it"

"It won't gore you"

"Run at it shouting"

and the more observational than useful:

"Wants to get down there and have sex with those cows"