so this weekend, nate and i went on a walk down ramble road. the road passes by several cow fields and since we had the camera, i stopped to take a few photos of a distant cow through the fence.
apparently, he saw us by the fence, and ambled on over.
ALL the cows came over. the sweet looking brown cow was my favorite. anyone have any idea why all the cows came to see us? they had plenty of grass to eat... so it didn't seem like food would be a motivation. we tried walking away, and they formed a single file line and followed. when we walked, they walked; when we ran, they ran:
as soon as we'd stop, they'd all gather as if we had called a meeting. eventually, i had to give a speech to they wouldn't feel as if they'd gathered in waste ;) it was funny. but seriously though, anyone cow savvy enough to explain this phenomenon to me?
on a sidenote, we also discovered more blackberry bushes than you can shake a stick at! well...i suppose you could shake a stick at them, but most likely, you'd be too busy picking berries like we were! we gathered a handful and had them with ice cream after dinner. yum yum.
7 comments:
Lacking any real cow savvy, I can only ask what was the content of your speech? How was it received?
I think it probably was a food issue actually, even if the cows were not hungry. I'll give an example to back up my opinion. I've been around cows quite a bit because that has always been one of my dad's hobbies. Even when the cows had bales (bails?) of hay sitting out to eat, they would still come running when my dad was actually putting out cow feed for them. He would always ride the 4-wheeler from the house to the barn to put out the feed, so eventually, the cows learned to associate the noise of the 4-wheeler with food too. So, even if it was me just riding around on the 4-wheeler for fun (with no intention of feeding the cows), as soon as they heard me start it up, they would come running and follow me around. Even if they couldn't see me, they would still follow the noise.
So maybe those cows that you saw associate seeing a person (any person) with getting fed, and they hoped that the meal they would receive would be better than some old grass.
thanks ash ;) i've always loved you and your cow savvy :)
so instead of pavlov's dog, you had bennett's cows, eh? interesting.
katie, forgot to reply to this :) my speech was well received after i calmed the "moos" and "who called this meeting?" ;) i explained that i was sorry to gather them all for naught, but that i had nothing to say or give them! it went over okay all things considered ;)
looking forward to fresh blackberry pie this weekend. - ni
I consider myself cow savy as well, I even showed cattle till I was 16, ha, that was a while ago. Anytime you want details on how to break a steer to lead and grooming him, let me know. Your friend is right, anytime our cows see my Dad's truck they head for the feed bunk, but seeing as those Dairy cattle are likely not feed by people all too often and likely not in their pasture, my guess is that it was how ridiculously goodlooking you and N are! Sometimes I want to follow the two of you are around, I just always figured you might find it strange. Also, just as a sidenote...the little brown cow was a Jersey. They are my favorite dairy breed. They also have really sweet dispositions.
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