This article is in the Spring 2003 issue of COWBOY MAGAZINE on page 14. I don't suppose there are too many people in the world who have a lot of respect for a cow. I do! Maybe fear would be a better word. I've been around cows all my life, and whenever one lets me know that she wants to hurt, maim, or possibly kill me, I listen. I have learned, over the years, that cows don't lie very often. Maybe bluff, but not lie. I also learned, at a young and tender age, that I don't like pain all that much.
I've laid on my back, in the middle of a gate, and watched a whole bunch of calves run over the top of me Now, I didn't do this for fun or really on purpose, even. Just one of those common, ordinary accidents that are prone to happen when you are young and stupid and don't realize the strength of a bunch of scared calves, or the weakness of a particular gate. I don't remember gettin' hurt real bad, but it did make me wonder how much worse it would have been if they had been full-grown cows.
Cows are probably the greatest cause of injury to ranchers and/or cowboys. Well, maybe second to irate wives. And, unlike wives, cows don't start out to hurt anyone. The average cow isn't walkin' around thinkin', "I wonder how I could get one of them two-legged critters to come close enough that I could run the full length of him, or at least butt him with my head, so I can teach him to respect us bovines."
I think most cows are just reacting to the situation, and, like most people, tryin' to get along and survive. And you can't blame a cow for trying to defend her calf. Shoot, we've selectively bred them to be good mamas. Most ranchers want a cow that can make a livin' and take good care of her calf and not let coyotes or wolves or cougars or bears get her young one. Maybe that's the difference between ranchers and farmers. A rancher expects the cow to make a livin' for him, and a farmer wants to make a livin' for the cow.
As I've stated before, I have a lot of respect for and fear of cows. When one indicates that she wants me to stay away from her calf, I listen. One evening, during calving time, we had some stormy weather, so we sorted off the heaviest looking calvers into a 40 by 80 shed. This shed was split on the inside by a solid wall to make the front end a machine shed and the back end a cow shed. We left the cows loose in the shed, and I would check on them every hour or so. There weren't more than 20 cows in there, so they had plenty of room to have a calf and get him up and sucking.
But I was afraid that some would start to "granny" if we left a new pair in there for very long. For the uninitiated, "grannying" is when a cow who hasn't yet had a calf will try to steal a calf from a cow who has calved. So, if something calved, I'd get the pair sorted off right away and put them into another nearby shed that had pens set up in it for just this situation.
On one of my many trips out to the shed to check for newborn calves, my fairly new, still-kind-of-a-town-girl wife went along to watch and/or help. Earlier, an older cow had calved, off in one corner, and I knew from past experience that this ol' gal didn't take kindly to human intrusion. So I had just left her alone for the time being. She was a good enough mother that I wasn't too worried about any other cow tryin' to granny her calf. So she was still in with the bunch.
On this trip, I had a first-calf heifer who had just calved and hadn't even gotten her calf up to suck yet. I knew that she needed to be moved, and the closest way to get her and her calf out of the shed was through a narrow walk-through door that led into the machine shed, right next to where she had her calf layin'.
We opened the door and drug the calf just barely through the door, so this heifer would be able to see it. I thought that, if she saw her calf right there, she'd just walk right on up and through this door. She was still young and gentle and didn't yet hate all of mankind, so I thought it would work. Shows what I get for thinkin'! The minute we moved her calf, she wandered out in amongst the other cows. We tried to get her sorted off and through the door, while at the same time keeping the other cows from going through the door. We didn't have much luck. After several sashays, I decided to change tactics. We would let a few other cows through the door, and maybe she would follow.
During all this time, the older, man-hater, who had calved earlier, was standing sentinel over her calf. She had her head way up in the air like a giraffe. I was real careful to keep some cows between me and that pair. My wife was oblivious to how much damage this ol' cow could do, and I kept warning her to keep an eye on her and be ready to run if she got on the prod. My wife was closer to this hussy than I was, and I had a hard time tryin' to move cows through the little door cuz I was so busy watchin' the wild cow and worryin' about her attacking my wife, or, worse yet, me. After repeatedly warning her, I finally made my wife change sides with me. Now I had to try to push cows and watch this mad cow behind me, over my shoulder.
The cows didn't want to go through the little door, and it was takin' quite a while to get our plan to work. Of course, I wasn't makin' much of a hand as I was keepin' an eye on the old cow in the corner more than I was watchin' the cows I was tryin' to move.
Suddenly, two things happened at once. Several cows finally saw the open door and started through, with the just-calved heifer right at the front of the pack. Also, I saw the mad cow take that instant to drop her head, and I knew she would come at me on the run.
Later on, my wife told me that she was really impressed by my ability to clear a door of packed cattle by running on top of their backs. Also, by my speed. She had never seen me move that fast before. She hadn't yet learned that I could outrun an Olympic sprinter if I had a snot-slingin' cow chasin' me.
After we got the heifer sorted off and settled in with her calf for the night, we walked back to the house. We were talking about the job we had just done, and my wife wanted to know how I had known to run at the cows at just the right moment to get the one we wanted while cutting back the ones we didn't want.
My modesty forced me to explain that I wasn't really trying to cut cows back so much as I was trying to save my life. I asked her, "Didn't you see that old cow drop her head and take a run at me?"
"I saw the whole thing," she answered. "That ol' cow never moved an inch. She just dropped her head to sniff at her baby."
I guess I just have to face the fact that I'm basically a coward. I hate to admit it, but now that my wife knows it, I figure she's told most everyone who knows me anyway. So it just doesn't matter. Besides, I guess this is fair warning to anyone out there who might have to work cows with me someday, afoot. It might just save some poor fool from gettin' run over by me!
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