Right after they jump over the moon.
This thread would not be complete without a link to a smilar conundrum which only the Dope can answer:
where is smithereens?
All mammals and most birds love a good dustbath. Particularly with cows, we are so used to thinking of them as dull-wittedly standing around eating until the day they go lumbering into the slaughterhouse that we forget they can be intelligent, playful and affectionate creatures. Thus: Cows. Sensitive, intelligent and affectionate animals. - YouTube
Huh, never would have thought it. Even horses do it apparently.
When the farmer chases them home.
Cattle and horses roll in the dust all the time. They’re far more limber than they look.
‘Get along little dogie.’
Absolutely never.
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I was instructed as a young buckaroo that a horse is healthy and not too fat if they can roll completely over while dusting themselves. It helps keep bugs from biting the areas the tail doesn’t reach.
This I can agree with. As a teenager I had a 2-3 cows to milk twice daily. They had a 20 acre pen next to the woods to graze in with a 150 yard lane to use to get through the fields to the barn. When they were out there, I’d start my chores by yelling for the lead cow (bell cow?) when I left the house. As she came up, the rest would follow. By the time the 10 minutes or so it took for them to get there, I’d have the water run and the feed laid out for them. Most days they were actually near or in the lane by the time I got outside. If I was late they were usually by the barn. They only came to my voice though.
Apparently your relatives kept unusually slow-witted beasts. My experience on dairy farms in Ireland is that the cows slowly, but reliably, drifted over to the milking parlour in time for morning and evening milking. When the parlour was opened they went in themselves, and each moved to its accustomed stall.
I agree. Dairy cows will come quite promptly at milking time, especially modern, good producing cows – those full udders hurt if left unemptied (just ask a pregnant/nursing mother). In a case like UDS described, they will even line themself up in the order that they are milked.
My sister-in-law, an executive for a large animal-feed company, described a recent visit to a fully-automated dairy farm. They have over a thousand dairy cows, all fed, watered & milked twice a day, without any human workers. The cows graze free-range on pastures most of the time. They wear computer chips that ID each of them.
When their udders are full, they walk into one of the open milking stations (and most cows tend to find a favorite one, and wait to use that one). The station is completely automated: it robotically washes, sterilizes, & gently scrubs the udder, attaches the milking hoses to the teats, and starts the milking suction. Meanwhile the cow is identified, and the appropriate amount of feed & any supplements for her are dumped into the feed trough. And the computer keeps track of the amount of milk she produces, and the quality. Unexpected decreases in either set off an alarm in the computer.
Also, she’s given a mini health check: her weight is checked & recorded, as is her temperature & pulse, and the computer evaluates her udder, looking for specific signs of infection. If any of these indicate a problem, a message goes to the on-call veterinary tech who comes & checks this cow later. If a cow doesn’t show up on time. an alarm is triggered, and a worker is called to search the pasture for her, in case she got injured, caught in a fence, or something.
When the milk stops coming & her feed is eaten, the machine disconnects the milker, washes her udder again, dries it with warm air, and then opens the front gate so she can walk back to the pasture or into the nightime barn. All done automatically, without humans being present.
And all this goes on 24 hours a day! There are cows that come in fir milking at 3am. The cows select their own milking time, and maintain it pretty consistently every day.
Of course, there are lots of humans involved in maintaining the machines, filling the feed bins, trucking away the days milk production, etc., but the basic operation is fully done between the cows, the computer, and the machines – no humans.
Early in the evenin’ just about supper time
[sub]Over by the courthouse they’re starting to unwind
Poor family on the corner huddlin’ under a tree
Willy picks his teeth and drools hungry as can be[/sub]
Cow Trek: The Voyage Home
As long as it’s not a five year mission. That’s be a long wait.
When I’m getting home tonight
I’m gonna hold her tight
I’m gonna love her till the cows come home
I’ll bet I’ll love her more
Till I walk out that door again
John Lennon, The Beatles - “When I Get Home”
♫ I got the "Milk ‘em in the mornin’ and feed 'em;
Milk ‘em in the evenin’ " blues♫
“Tennessee” Ernie Ford
I agree with everything you said.
BUT, with dairy cows, it is more than just habit that brings them home.
As their udders get full of milk, it gets uncomfortable and may even become painful.
So even a cow who is the antithesis of habitual will come back to the barn to get milked, because they want to get milked, and they know where that happens.
Which is part of why a cow not coming back is cause for concern.
Precisely when they mean to.
It really depends on the type of cattle operation. As mentioned above, dairy cows typically ‘come home’ twice a day to get milked. Beef cattle tend to roam around in pastures until the rancher decides that they need to be moved to a new pasture or rounded up and sold. At least, that’s how it works here in southwest Oklahoma.
Cows are wizards???!!!