Cows and dogs

[brightncheerful]

What is it please about cows and dogs that they stare at one another,, dog bark cows look menacingly?

We have trained our dog , age 2.5, to not bark at cows in the park of a National Trust place where she walks regularly and occasionally the cows are grazing in a ditch / fence protected field alongside the main path, but that does't stop them looking like if left to their own devices becoming a issue.

[swill453]

Apparently cows see dogs as a much greater threat than humans https://www.countryfile.com/go-outdoors ... o-walkers/

Scott.

[ReformedCharacter]

As the article above mentions, cows see dogs as a threat to calves and will feel threatened even in the absence of calves.

RC

[bungeejumper]

Multiple attacks in one field near us, including one dog-walker death and two serious (non-dog-related) trampling injuries. The farmer was fined for not upgrading security, as he had been ordered to do after earlier attacks. https://www.dailypost.co.uk/news/north- ... s-12315123 He really should have gone to prison.

The court heard the herd of 31 Limousin continental cows were a particularly aggressive crossbreed and had attacked ramblers on at least four occasions before the stampede which killed Professor Porter.

Which is odd, since Limousin are large but usually quite gentle. Thirty years ago, it was a dozen Friesian bullocks that had me scrambling over a fallen tree to get away from an imminent trampling! I didn't get the chance to see whether they'd been castrated - I was running too damn fast! But there's a reason why you rarely see a Friesian bull out in the open. They're very large, and they have an evil temper!

Out here in the sticks, we are surrounded on three sides by an organic dairy farm. The farmer has fenced off the non-footpath areas to keep dogs off the fields, because he's had half a dozen aborted calves - some caused by dogs chasing the pregnant cows, and others caused by parasites in dog poo. (Cows aren't fussy eaters. )

A well-documented problem, then, The local dog walkers have grumbled, but they have generally respected the fencing. (The odd lurcher still gets through, often in pursuit of hares or deer.) There are two sides to every story.

BJ

[Nimrod103]

With so many docile British breeds of cow, I don't understand why farmers would want to keep such dangerous imported breeds.

[swill453]

With so many docile British breeds of cow, I don't understand why farmers would want to keep such dangerous imported breeds.

Profit?

Scott.

[ReformedCharacter]

With so many docile British breeds of cow, I don't understand why farmers would want to keep such dangerous imported breeds.

The only dairy cattle that might be described as 'British' are the Dairy Shorthorn but there aren't many of those left. Both Jerseys and Guernseys originated in Normandy, probably. And they AFAIK have some bos indicus genes from Asia, which is why they are often seen in Africa, being better suited to the climate. Both Jersey and Guernsey bulls have a reputation for being fierce. I was nearly gored by Jersey cow in Kenya, one horn made it through my trousers but fortunately just grazed my backside, a close call Most of the black and white cattle in the UK used to be Friesians, originally from Holland, but are now often Friesian-Holstein, the Holsteins being German, originally. There are a wider number of British beef cattle, such as the Devon Red, Hereford and Angus. None of those breeds are known for their docility. Most beef, however, derives from culled dairy or male dairy cattle, neither of which produce high quality beef.

As to why farmers keep imported breeds, it's to improve productivity by breeding to select for desirable characteristics, which is why there aren't many Dairy Shorthorns left.

Then there were a few imported 'Nazi' cattle, originally championed by Herman Goering who wanted to recreate the extinct Auroch

They became so aggressive a UK farmer was forced to turn half of them into sausages.

https://www.independent.co.uk/climate-change/news/british-farmer-forced-to-turn-half-his-murderous-herd-of-nazi-cows-into-sausages-9958988.html

RC

[bungeejumper]

With so many docile British breeds of cow, I don't understand why farmers would want to keep such dangerous imported breeds.

High milk yields, better tasting beef, trouble-free calving, tolerance for rough ground or unkind weather conditions. There are plenty of reasons why we let those dangerous foreigners in.

Speaking of which, I'm quite sure you haven't made the easy error of mistaking a nice docile Friesian for a traditional English breed?

Whereas if you want a really dangerous animal, look no further than a Jersey bull [as above, thanks RC]. A complete barsteward in both gender variations, so they tell me. And it's had a British passport since 1740. Why, Wellington himself would have ridden one to war if only he'd had the nerve.

BJ

[Nimrod103]

With so many docile British breeds of cow, I don't understand why farmers would want to keep such dangerous imported breeds.

High milk yields, better tasting beef, trouble-free calving, tolerance for rough ground or unkind weather conditions. There are plenty of reasons why we let those dangerous foreigners in.

Speaking of which, I'm quite sure you haven't made the easy error of mistaking a nice docile Friesian for a traditional English breed?

Whereas if you want a really dangerous animal, look no further than a Jersey bull [as above, thanks RC]. A complete barsteward in both gender variations, so they tell me. And it's had a British passport since 1740. Why, Wellington himself would have ridden one to war if only he'd had the nerve.

BJ

I admit to being quite ignorant on this but interested. I’m sure I read somewhere that Holstein Frisians were temperamental and potentially dangerous. When I lived in Devon I remember the Devon Reds appearing very well behaved. Also there were Dexters at the County Show which were very good.

[bungeejumper]

Meanwhile, back on the safe side of the fence: https://killercows.co.uk . Its agenda is clear; no idea how reliable its figures are. But yes, there's a valid issue here. I've had to turn back and abandon a planned walk on several occasions because I couldn't trust the twenty tonnes of restless beef that was jostling around the gate.

As one of Ray Bradbury's chiller stories ended:

Don't look behind you. It's probably too late...

BJ

[ReformedCharacter]

I admit to being quite ignorant on this but interested. I’m sure I read somewhere that Holstein Frisians were temperamental and potentially dangerous. When I lived in Devon I remember the Devon Reds appearing very well behaved. Also there were Dexters at the County Show which were very good.

I think all cattle are potentially dangerous but some factors such as whether they are with calves, their breed etc. make them more or less a risk. I worked on a dairy farm with a herd of Friesians for a year and never felt at risk but these cattle were milked twice daily and very accustomed to human interaction. I doubt whether Friesian-Holsteins are inherently more dangerous than other breeds, it all depends on other things. The husband of a friend farms Devon Reds and he got quite badly injured by one of his cattle.

Dexters are a rare breed and a good example of why so many breeds would die out without the enthusiasts who keep them without having to do so commercially. Double Gloucester cheese used to be made from Gloucester cattle and there were characteristics of their milk (something to do with with the size of the butterfat globules IIRC) which gave the cheese a particular flavour and texture. Gloucester cattle are now an 'endangered breed'. Dexters, which originated in Ireland, would have been a great provider of milk for a family or small community, being able to make do on poor pasture, small fields and well adapted to harsher conditions. And being small relatively easy to handle, but they are useless on a commercial basis nowadays. They also have some interesting genetic problems:

Some Dexter cattle carry a gene for chondrodysplasia (a semilethal gene), which is a form of dwarfism that results in shorter legs than unaffected cattle. Chondrodysplasia-affected Dexters are typically 6–8 in shorter in height than unaffected ones. Breeding two chondrodysplasia-affected Dexters together results in a 25% chance that the foetus can abort prematurely.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dexter_cattle

RC

[ReformedCharacter]

Meanwhile, back on the safe side of the fence: https://killercows.co.uk . Its agenda is clear; no idea how reliable its figures are. But yes, there's a valid issue here. I've had to turn back and abandon a planned walk on several occasions because I couldn't trust the twenty tonnes of restless beef that was jostling around the gate.
BJ

Some of the stories in the link are pretty horrendous and there's no doubt that some farmers give little concern for public safety. Changing the subject slightly, there have been some very unpleasant dog attacks locally, the dogs being owned by farmers. A few years ago I drove past one such farm and an extremely aggressive dog chased my car, I was tempted to put the car into reverse and attempt to run the b***er over. If I had been a pedestrian I would have been scared for my life.

The campaigns objectives at https://killercows.co.uk:

- Compulsory public liability insurance for all farmers who keep livestock.
- Cattle to be separated from walkers on our National Trails.
- A central database to record all incidents of cattle attacks across England and Wales.

Seem very sensible and I'm surprised the first, public liability insurance, is not already mandatory. Although not being much of a walker myself, I'm not sure exactly what a National Trail is and I can appreciate that it may be impractical to separate all areas where people have the right to walk from cattle\sheep. There's also the other side of the coin, irresponsible dog owners whose animals chase sheep, sometimes with unpleasant consequences.

RC