When we bought the dun cow in the picture below the black cow seen grazing with her stood like a statue and stared - as if she had seen a ghost for a good few minutes without moving or batting an eyelid and then continued to stare whilst getting a closer look for about 10 minutes without turning away once. They hadn't seen each other for 3 years and the black cow was only a yearling then, the dun cow, now 12 was always a fairly dominant animal, lead cow when they came from the field and we assumed the black cow was afraid of her. However when they went in together a few weeks later it turned out that we were wrong, they were actually really fond of each other and were really pleased to be together, they get on very well. It seemed to us like a human trait to stare like that, as if she couldn't believe her eyes to see the other cow again after 3 years!
Once this - a different dun cow had done her time in isolation after we had bought her we put the black heifer on her right in the picture below in with her for company. You rarely see them far apart in the field and when they had to be in different fields as one was spending time with the bull there was much mooing back and forth. Dexters definitely form strong bonds and resent it when they are split up.
We have noticed that the herd like to lie on the brow of the field and chew their cud, it is probably a coincidence that they also seem to lie in a circle quite often.
Another thing that springs to mind about Dexter behaviour is family groups. We haven't had much chance to observe it here as we don't have many families here as yet but we did see it as Bunksland. Also on the same subject we have a cow that was until last year at the bottom of the pecking order. Suddenly she got quite determined and has been at the top for at least six months now. It took a while for us to realise why this was, as we couldn't understand what had changed and then we saw what was going on. Every time she has a little altercation with another female along comes her huge two year old son and although he doesn't always actually do anything he makes his presence felt - amazing. He has always loved his Mum and mooed to her if she was in a different field, so we shouldn't be so surprised that he protects her. I wonder where she will be in the pecking order in a few months time as he will be in the freezer soon!
Ooh Steph that is soo cute - the mum with her son I mean.
I have a little story too
A famous matriarch, whose whole herd had been sold to another breeder (and many will know who I mean), and who had not seen her kids and grandkids for several years, "came home" to the herd not so long ago, as her breeder owner felt she would be better off with her family than with him.
She was unloaded off the trailer and put straight into her old herd. All the older animals came dashing over to greet her - almost as if to say "youve been away for too long ... how are you ... and the current lead cow immediately gave way to her mum or grandmum (cant remember which) and the old girl took her rightful position as leader - immediately. Apparently it was just lovely to watch, so the owner of the herd told me.
Soo nice!
Yes so do I Steph, but having walked amongst that herd, its not hard to believe. They are just a super family unit! some have horns, some dont, doesnt seem to matter - just lovely.
We had a new calf yesterday, born to the dun cow that I mentioned earlier in the thread. She is 12 years old and didn't seem impressed with my idea of leaving her on her own in the field to bond with her newborn, she wanted company. So I fetched another cow to join her a 13 year old dun cow that looks just like her but fatter now that Petrel has calved! She is much happier with some company.
Here she is suckling her new bull calf. She doesn't seem to clean him though and as you can see in the bottom image there are lots of flies on him - I worry about fly strike. I rang the vet to check that we could use Spoton - he said we can but just 2 to 3 mls, plus some Fly Cream on the back end where all the mess is stuck to him, for good measure.
He looked like he had a rampant case of white scour by the time we had plastered him in Fly Cream but it seemed to do the trick, no flies on him when I checked him an hour later.
We just had a case up the road which I helped with. It was extreme and the only thing that worked was a thorough washing using a bit of animal shampoo, let it dry off and then gave it all-over (underneath as well) VERY light spray with a sheep fly deterrent (Veterazin). Then the flies then wouldn't land on the calf any more. Prior to that the owner washed with diluted Jeyes fluid and applied a version of SpotOn (can't recall the make) neither of which worked very well if at all.
Clive - as you say the case you saw was extreme so I expect it had eggs already, so it would have needed extreme measures to get rid of the flies.
With my calf we were just preventing a problem and I took my vets excellent advice.
If the cow had been cleaning the calf properly Spot On wouldn't have worked very well as she would have licked it off, so it isn't usually particularly effective on a new born calf but my cow wasn't washing her calf. One of the reasons for Fly Cream on the back end is that the muck sticking to hair and skin can scald the calfs tender skin and the cream helps to prevent this happening.
A few months back I noticed that our smallest cow who usually gets pushed around was at the top of the pecking order. This was because her big son, over 2 years old was sticking up for her! He piled in whenever she had a spat with another cow. Does this often happen in other herds?
Sadly for him and his little mother, he went off for beef a month ago and she is back to being pushed around.
Until I noticed his behaviour, I thought he had a very bland character but I wished I hadn't noticed - how could you not like him for it? As made it VERY hard to send him to the abattoir!
