{"id":2381,"date":"2013-03-11T20:26:12","date_gmt":"2013-03-11T20:26:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.msdn.microsoft.com\/bharry\/2013\/03\/11\/are-you-missing-a-cow\/"},"modified":"2024-04-17T12:48:42","modified_gmt":"2024-04-17T19:48:42","slug":"are-you-missing-a-cow","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/bharry\/are-you-missing-a-cow\/","title":{"rendered":"Are you missing a cow?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Saturday night I was at my son\u2019s lacrosse game with the family.\u00a0 My wife got a phone call.\u00a0 It was a fellow farmer and neighbor, Noah (about 2 miles south of us).\u00a0 His question was \u201cAre you missing a cow?\u201d\u00a0 The answer, of course, was we didn\u2019t know.\u00a0 Even if we had been home, counting ~100 cows turns out to be a lot harder than you\u2019d think \u2013 the dang things just won\u2019t stay still.\u00a0 It turns out Noah had seen a stray black cow with no distinctive markings.<\/p>\n

So I had to leave the lacrosse game to go home and see what was up.\u00a0 By the time I got home it was dark.\u00a0 I stopped by Noah\u2019s house and learned that he had last seen the cow running down another neighbor\u2019s (long) driveway.\u00a0 I drove down the driveway but, let\u2019s just say that looking for a black cow when it\u2019s pitch dark is a less then productive exercise.\u00a0 After a drive up and down the driveway, I gave up.<\/p>\n

The next morning, my wife and I woke up at about 6:30 and my wife said to me \u201cSomething\u2019s not right.\u00a0 The cows are making too much noise.\u201d\u00a0 We\u2019re expecting calves any day so she was thinking a cow was having problems.\u00a0 So we both got dressed and went down to the lower barn where the cows are wintering.\u00a0 Standing in front of the gate behind the hay barn was a strange cow \u2013 a young, all black, female cow (yes, I know that\u2019s redundant \"Image<\/a>).<\/p>\n

I could tell something was not right with this cow.\u00a0 It had the wrong posture \u2013 head up high, very alert and poised to run.\u00a0 These cows I call \u201ccrazy cows\u201d.\u00a0 Crazy cows are cows that are so afraid that they are hyper and irrational \u2013 jacked up on adrenaline.\u00a0 In fact, they are incredibly dangerous.\u00a0 We\u2019ve had a couple of cows that have \u201cgone crazy\u201d and the smartest thing you can do is sell them fast.\u00a0 We are fortunate to generally have a very calm herd that I can walk calmly among and get within a few feet before they ease away.\u00a0 This cow was trouble.<\/p>\n

I managed to go the long way around behind and clear the field of our cows.\u00a0 I then opened the gate and we chased the cow into the pasture.\u00a0 This is my goat pasture which is extra secure \u2013 posts every 12 ft, high tensile woven wire plus electrical.\u00a0 Not much will get out of it.<\/p>\n

Once we had the cow penned up, we started calling farmers in the area.\u00a0 None of them were missing cows.<\/p>\n

We noticed that the cow had a \u201cslap tag\u201d on its left shoulder. This is a round white sticker sometimes used as a temporary label for transport.<\/p>\n

My best guess is someone bought her at auction with the idea of keeping her on some \u201cextra grass\u201d.\u00a0 My guess is they didn\u2019t realize they were getting a crazy cow and once they got it home, the cow panicked and jumped their fence.\u00a0 I\u2019ve seen a cow jump a 4 1\/4 foot stall gate.<\/p>\n

Ultimately we called the animal control officer and they are going to go door to door in the area anywhere they find a place nearby that looks like they might have a cow.\u00a0 Here it is Monday night and we still don\u2019t know whose it is.\u00a0 It\u2019s more than a $1,000 animal.\u00a0 Someone has got to be wondering where their investment is.<\/p>\n

Are you missing a cow?<\/p>\n

Brian<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Saturday night I was at my son\u2019s lacrosse game with the family.\u00a0 My wife got a phone call.\u00a0 It was a fellow farmer and neighbor, Noah (about 2 miles south of us).\u00a0 His question was \u201cAre you missing a cow?\u201d\u00a0 The answer, of course, was we didn\u2019t know.\u00a0 Even if we had been home, counting […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":244,"featured_media":14617,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[6],"class_list":["post-2381","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-personal"],"acf":[],"blog_post_summary":"

Saturday night I was at my son\u2019s lacrosse game with the family.\u00a0 My wife got a phone call.\u00a0 It was a fellow farmer and neighbor, Noah (about 2 miles south of us).\u00a0 His question was \u201cAre you missing a cow?\u201d\u00a0 The answer, of course, was we didn\u2019t know.\u00a0 Even if we had been home, counting […]<\/p>\n","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/bharry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2381","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/bharry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/bharry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/bharry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/244"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/bharry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2381"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/bharry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2381\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/bharry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14617"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/bharry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2381"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/bharry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2381"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/bharry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2381"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}