When suckler cows turn nasty

I am in the pub, with four or five farmers discussing the year thus far.

They start with the lambing and have a sort of postmortem on that. Postmortem is an appropriate analogy in the circumstance, because most of them were lambing in the snow.

But they are in something of a quandary; they all have an instinct to say their lambing was by far the worst, but they are reluctant to quantify it. Who wants to say they have lost 50 or 60 lambs when in the pub? They don’t want to say it, so they don’t. They don’t move to the subject of planting of spring crops. It has been a wet, miserable late spring, and similarly disappointing working the fields.

I notice one farmer is less downbeat than the others. He is usually notoriously late with his spring work and is busy at it long after the others. Because the season is late, he has been busy at the same time as everyone else and you can tell, by his demeanour, he quite enjoys it. Whether he has caught them up or they have dropped back to his level, I’m not sure. I have not contributed to the conversation, thus far. I don’t have sheep and, therefore, no lambing. I have spring sourcing to do, but I stay quiet on that. In my experience, it’s difficult to learn anything if you are talking.

All of the others keep beef suckler cows, except me, and, as most of these are spring calving, we move on to that. Soon a common theme emerges; it seems they all have a nasty cow or two. It is easy to underestimate how dangerous these cows can be at calving or when they have a calf at foot.

The people who work with them every day are well aware of the danger owed by individual animals. But these animals are invariably kept inside in groups and it is too easy to be distracted when attending to other animals, and for the nasty one to sneak up on you. Vets are particularly vulnerable to this sort of scenario.

Mad cows

Years ago we had a little white Ayrshire cow that was a nightmare when it calved. At that time we kept our cows in loose boxes with traditional half stable doors. If you looked over the door when it had just calved, it would back up until it touched the back wall and charge the door with all the force it could muster.

It wasn’t any old charge – at the moment of impact it would lift its front feet off the floor, as you see in fighting mountain goats, and the impact would rattle the whole building.

When the time came to remove cow from calf, there was no way you could go in and drive it out. So, I would look over the door, wait for the charge, and, at the last moment, open the door with the sort of flourish you normally see in a bullring with a cape, and the cow would find itself out on the yard. Once it couldn’t see the calf it would be all sweetness again and return to the milking as if there had never been a calf.

I mention all this because, eventually, all these cows go out to grass and probably take the danger with them. The number of incidents where walkers get injured by cows seems to increase year on year. Sometimes these incidents cause dreadful injuries, sometimes tragic fatalities.

Why are they on the increase? There would be several reasons. In an ageing society it is possible more people choose to exercise by walking in the countryside. When things go wrong, a dog is often involved. There is no way I would take a dog into a field with cows and calves.

We live in a society where we are told a big percentage don’t know where their food comes from. We are often told about people who don’t even know where milk comes from. Why then do we expect them to know it is foolish to take a dog among cows and calves? A dog is usually well able to take care of itself in these situations and it is best to let it loose, rather than hang on to the lead.

Could it be most suckler cows have some continental beef blood in their make up and are less docile than the suckler herds of 30 or 40 years ago that would have been Hereford or Aberdeen Angus? I don’t detect a breed or breed-cross problem, but suspect this aggression could be a heritable trait and, as such, should be culled out.

Vets can play a part in this. You will see these nasty cows when you TB test them or if you are asked to calve them. Cull cows are a good price; it might be easier than you think. The farmers in the pub are already with you on this. One of them admits he has sent two nasty cows for slaughter. Once he admits to this, it’s like a communal coming out. The others have sent nasty cows off, too. These are steps in the right direction. The next step is to make sure they don’t do their progeny for cow replacements.

A good story

I might have told you this story before, I could apologise, but I won’t. It illustrates my point exactly, and besides, a good story is a good story. No one ever criticised Frank Sinatra for singing “My Way” again and again.

This elderly farmer had a cow calving. It had been “on” for some time and he couldn’t get near it. He didn’t even dare get in the pen with it. Neighbours being cheaper than vets, he phoned his young neighbour, who is in his early 60s.

The neighbour has a look from a safe distance and decided to call a vet. The vet recommended they put a big square bale of straw on the tractor and loader, and, with the bale, they were able to pin the cow in a corner and examine it. The calf had its head back, but all this interference was too much for the cow and it escaped.

Our three participants headed for the nearest refuge, which happened to be in the cab of the tractor. It was only a small cab, so it was quite cosy. The cow was circling the tractor looking for ways to attack them. The farmer said: “Can’t you give it an injection to calm it down?”. The vet responded: “If I get close enough to inject it, it’ll never walk again.”