There have been many times I have been working cows and they have done some of the dumbest things. Honestly, how many times have you grabbed your head of hair and thought — Why would you do that? — while working cows? They definitely have their own personalities.
Cows will do what they want, when they want, and how they want. But their minds are programmed to think fight or flight when they feel threatened or sense danger. I didn’t have FFA or Ag class growing up — I just went to school and came home and worked on the farm. Since I was extremely young, I may not have understood the terms fight or flight or point of direction when working cows, but I subconsciously knew the meaning and what to do. It wasn’t until I went to college and started to take agricultural classes that I started to hear the terminology and understand that’s what I was doing while working cows at home. It helped to hear those words and have someone explain it in a way that was easier to explain to employees who would start out on the farm with little to no background working cows.
Although at times cows can make you want to pull your hair out, if you sit back and watch their habits and mannerisms you realize these creatures are extremely intelligent. I tell people all the time, cows are smarter than most people.
During the worst of Hurricane Helene, I was worried not only for me and my family’s safety, but I was also worried about the cows that were out in the elements as well. When I had walked outside once daylight hit and saw the number of trees down, I just knew that the cows had huddled up in the woods of our pastures and we would have to deal with the horrible aftermath. When I tell you entire wooded areas were flattened, that isn’t an understatement.
Much to my disbelief, when I was able to get into the dairy’s driveway, I looked at the fields and every single cow that you could see outside was huddled closely together in the middle of their field bedded down low to the ground far away from the wooded areas. It’s like they just knew that that’s what they were supposed to do to stay away from harm.
In my last blog I explained that the calf hutches had been blown two fields away from their original location. Thankfully the calves that were in them were all found alive and well, not far from their normal spots. They too were bedded down away from trees waiting for the wind and rain to calm down. My grandparents are firm believers in looking at the cows to see if they were grazing or lying down before going fishing. I am not sure how much proof there is to that theory, but they would bet on a cow’s behavior for a good day’s fishing.
The habits and resilience of these animals is astounding, and they will outsmart you on any given day. Usually, it’s when you are least expecting it.
Mark and Caitlin Rodgers are dairy farmers in Dearing, Georgia. The Rodgers have a 400-cow dairy that averages 32,000 pounds of milk. Follow their family farm on Facebook at Hillcrest Farms Inc.