Checking Cows

For the third? day in a row I rode Coyote out to check cows instead of working with Rusty. Rusty is heart broken. He can’t figure out why he can’t come. I can only imagine the havoc he would wreck on the poor cattle if allowed to run along loose.

It’s calving time and we check the cows regularly to make sure no cows are having trouble calving  and no calves are sick or having any other problems. A mother who is trying to kill her new calf is not unheard of. I like to ride through the herd and see the new babies, laugh sympathetically at the cows nearly bursting at the seams ready to calve. I remember what it’s like those final days of pregnancy, the sheer and utter misery of it.

Riding bareback in a halter I am extra leery of the high headed snorty cows, pawing the ground and making faces at me for daring to ride past. Coyote is happy to steer clear, in his former life as a ranch horse he was nearly eaten alive more times than I want to count. If I had known then what I know now about training he could have made a truly great cow horse. As it is he’s a really good but neurotic cow horse. Mostly I would have known to say no, I’m not getting myself killed and souring my horse just to get a cow taken care of. I can feel his tension through my seat as we ride through the cattle.

I am always amused by the cows preference for the corrals. The have a quarter section of cornstalks and pasture to roam but all they want is to be in the dirt lots. Every time I hear about the horrors of high density feedlots, how the poor things are kept on dirt and not allowed out on grass, packed in with so many others, I think of these cows. If Rusty can choose to be with me and choose not to run back to his herd, why can’t cattle show their choice to be in the feedlot? Can’t we just accept that maybe they like it? I’m not saying they would choose it over green grass in the spring but maybe a thing some people look at as terrible isn’t something that bothers cattle?

• ← Choice
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