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Cows with calves


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Hi everyone,

 

I know this subject comes up every single year without fail, but I thought I'd bring it up again in order to warn any newbies.

 

Basically, BE CAREFUL if you're going into fields of cows - especially at this time of year, when they have calves with them! Even if they look calm, they can get very frisky and protective of their babies, and that can be dangerous. And be especially careful if you have a dog with you. If cows start chasing you and your dog, let the dog go - it can run faster than you can, and will get itself to safety. There have been several injuries and a couple of deaths reported in the past few years of people who got trampled by cows; if you're at all unsure about entering a field, find a way round or leave it for another day.

 

We had a near miss a couple of days ago. We followed a public footpath down to a cache, and there were cows sitting peacefully over the other side of the field we had to walk through, so we weren't worried. On the way back we found that the herd had got up and moved to block our path back out of the field, and they had calves with them so were eyeing us suspiciously. We tried to walk up the side of the next field but there wasn't a way through, and then we saw the cows stampede into the field below, so we walked as quickly as we could back up the original field. Suddenly they wheeled around and started charging in our direction, so we had to peg it! We got out in time and they peeled off in another direction. Man it was scary. NB we didn't have a dog with us.

 

Looking back it's all good fun, but please do be careful! I grew up in the countryside and used to walk through fields of cows all the time with no problems, so this led me to believe I knew when I was safe as an adult. Obviously I was a lot smaller as a child though, so was probably never perceived as a threat - whereas now, I won't take the risk.

 

TB :)

Edited by tonibunny
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I was out with Omally and Hi-Tek a couple of weeks ago doing a circular series around Tadley. At one point the footpath went diagonally across a field containing a mixture of young heifers and bullocks. Now I'm not usually phased by animals as I reckon a sharp prod with a Leki pole or a clout on the nose with a 4 cell Maglite will usually sort them out. So.. over the style I went while my 'mates' held back and watched. All was well for the first few yards until one of the beasts started running towards me. New minute, I had a whole herd coming straight at me in full stampede mode. I was back over that style only moments before they reached me. (Mates rolling on the floor, laughing)

But it didn't stop there.... These carnivorous bu**ers had got a real bloodlust going and followed us all the way round two sides of the field before giving up and going off in search of other prey.

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Can I add that if you have a dog with you to take great care at any time and particularly with dairy herds.

PLEASE DO NOT TAKE THIS HAZARD LIGHTLY IF YOU HAVE A CANINE COMPANION.

 

Our German Shepherd was attacked by a Holstein/Friesian who flipped him with her nose four times before he managed to make his escape. We were part of a largish group of cachers including children and this was a particularly scary incident. This was a totally unprovoked attack as our placid GSD Chester (all those who have met him I'm sure would agree) had not barked, growled or barely looked at them and was giving them a wide berth with me and there was not a calf in sight. On the way back I took him through an adjoining field and the same cow was trying to get through the hedgerow to get at him.

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I had a slightly anxious moment a few evenings ago, walking through a field with Ozzy with cows and calves in. There were only about 10 in total, so a wide berth was easy. However, there was a single cow on her own who appeared from nowhere. She charged towards me and Ozzy and I had nowhere to go..... so.... I waved my arms as big as I could and shouted at it, and it backed off, thankfully!

 

Probably a bit foolish entering the field in the first place, but there was a cache the other side of it, lol.

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I had a slightly anxious moment a few evenings ago, walking through a field with Ozzy with cows and calves in. There were only about 10 in total, so a wide berth was easy. However, there was a single cow on her own who appeared from nowhere. She charged towards me and Ozzy and I had nowhere to go..... so.... I waved my arms as big as I could and shouted at it, and it backed off, thankfully!

 

Probably a bit foolish entering the field in the first place, but there was a cache the other side of it, lol.

 

I used to think cows were harmless till i started caching ..... they are now my worst nightmare!

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Having read the non dog related comments on here, I think if I had known how scary cows could be, I wouldn't have entered a field for a cache when this brute was there. :laughing: You can read the log here.

 

9eea13b5-fea8-4b39-bc9a-37a09a939670.jpg

 

To be honest I think I will still way up each field as I come to it. But I do realise that it can be dodgy.

 

John, I wish I could have been there to have seen you leg it out of that field, I reckon that would have been funny? :laughing: Although if I had been there, I think I would have been in the field with you. :)

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I'll add this again, because it makes an interesting read if you have Cow and Bull issues.

 

For England and Wales

http://www.hse.gov.uk/pubns/ais17ew.pdf

For Scotland

http://www.hse.gov.uk/pubns/ais17s.pdf

Apologies to those in NI and ROI, I don't have anything

 

The main points being....

 

Section 59 of the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981 bans bulls of recognised dairy breeds (eg Ayrshire, Friesian, Holstein, Dairy Shorthorn, Guernsey, Jersey and Kerry) in all circumstances from being at large in fields crossed by public rights of way. Bulls of all other breeds are also banned from such fields unless accompanied by cows or heifers, but there are no specific prohibitions on other cattle. ‘Fields’ in this legislation does not include areas such as open fell or moorland.

 

Additionally....

 

If you have an animal known or suspected to be aggressive then you should not keep it in a field that is used by the public. If you have to do so then you will need to take extra precautions to protect the public. Consider whether you should dispose of aggressive animals.

 

Unfortunately, it appears that the law only really applies to Bulls and aggressive animals.

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I'm very nervous about cattle after this experience earlier this year

http://www.geocaching.com/seek/log.aspx?LU...dd-e28e33e91454

 

But I still will go in a field on a case by case basis. Last weekend I crossed a field of bullocks, some of which got up and gave me an evil stare, but they didn't chase me. Then a field of cows; they were OK too, though the cache was under their trough, and I decided it was best to skip that one. A couple of weeks ago as I approached the stile into their field, a group of bullocks came running over aggressively... I decided to skip that cache.

I've also recently taken some alternate routes to avoid cattle, especially when I have seen recent logs of other cachers near death experiences.

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Wasn't Whittington Footbridge, was it, Tonibunny?

 

I had a nasty experience there in May - my log:

 

"A word of warning. I attempted this cache today from the Whittington end - this is NOT recommended if you have a dog with you.

Lovely start to the walk, although I went up the other footpath behind Pen y Bryn Avenue as I thought it met up with the one from the cemetry - but it doesn't, had to do a limbo under some barbed wire. Used to play up here a lot as a kid, but last time I was here there were still trains running. Saw a fox very close to in the second field, beautiful creature, it watched my dogs for about 30 seconds (they hadn't seen it, dozy pair) and then shot through the hedge. The footpath isn't clearly marked here and the farmer hasn't left a space for it in the middle of the crop field where it is shown on the map, so you need to go down the left side.

 

This is where the problems start - the stile to the next field isn't dog friendly, although left to their own devices mine found another way through somewhere further along. Having negotiated the bog, it proved impossible to get the dogs across the footbridge due to a stile at the other end and steep river banks, so I gave up and turned back. This was when I realised that whilst my attention was concentrated on the bog and the bridge, the cows that had been (I thought) safely ensconced in the next field had come to see us, and were not happy.

 

They had calves with them (more teenagers than babies, nearly as big as their Mums), saw the dogs as a threat, and tried to charge them and corner them. I got back across the bog as quickly as I could and made for the stile, stood on top of it, waved my arms about and growled loudly. One had actually got Sage pinned up against the wall but luckily my waving and growling made them drop back long enough for me to drag the dogs under the bottom of the fence to the safety of the next field.

 

So please be warned and don't take dogs this way, at least till the teenage calves have left home. I would actually be very wary of going this way at all, especially with geokids.

 

I'll try again another day from the opposite direction."

 

(I did and found it, 3 days later)

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I grew up in a rural area, and with a dairy farmer as a Godfather, so always felt 'safe' around cattle - but no longer. Something has happened - I don't know whether it's the way we farm these animals now, or whether they've been bred so intensively for milk production that temprement has changed, but I've had enough *really* scary and nasty experiences with cows, to the point I now refuse to walk through a field with them in, no matter whether they've got babies with them or not, and any mention of having to cross fields with cattle in a log will have me avoiding that cache.

 

Which is somewhat frustrating as there's a local cache I'd love to do which involves collecting clues from three other local caches. I've visited two and have the clues from there - but the third cache is guarded by bovines!

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I agree with you chalkylou, something has changed, I grew up with cattle, then worked as an animal health inspector for several years, and never feared them, but I do now. They can seem mild and then they seem to just flip and become really aggressive, this used to happen very rarely, but now nearly every meeting seems tense, so we avoid them as well.

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Yikes Caz, no it wasn't Whittington Footbridge - I'm glad I did that one from the other end too now! I'm so glad you and the dogs got away safely!!! The cache where we nearly came a cropper was out in Wales, near Bala.

 

What Chalkylou and Reddeeps say is really scary. Please take great care everyone!!

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I grew up as a townie, and didn't meet cows until fairly late in life. I got over the surprise of how big they are (compared with, say, a hamburger), I learned to tell the diffference between cows and bulls and I don't have a dog.

 

So I'll enter a field full of cows without a second thought. "Out of the way, ladies" I say, if I need to walk amongst them, and if one of them looks at me askance I say "Horseradish sauce" to her.

 

Large gangs of bullocks, though, are another matter. I'll usually walk thought a field of bullocks, but I'm a lot more wary, especially if they gang up and start chanting "You're going home in an ambulance".

 

So far, I haven't had any trouble with cows.

 

Dogs, though ... some owners need a dose of discipline.

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Being in a rural area a lot of the walks we do involve cows... personally I hate them - having definately been a townie in my childhood. Even before we starting Geocaching my partner and I would do long walks that were almost always interrupted at some point by cows....I learned from an old rambler that I would often find a large stick by the entrance to the field and that I should pick the stick up and wave it around at cow's eye height, and that I should talk in a loud voice telling them that I was in charge :mad: It was considered good etiquette to leave the stick at the other side of the field...

 

As for Pippa the dog - if there are cows, or sheep, or goats, she gets put back on the lead, not only because she might spook the animals but because she likes to roll around in their sh*t :(

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I grew up as a townie, and didn't meet cows until fairly late in life. I got over the surprise of how big they are (compared with, say, a hamburger), I learned to tell the diffference between cows and bulls and I don't have a dog.

 

So I'll enter a field full of cows without a second thought. "Out of the way, ladies" I say, if I need to walk amongst them, and if one of them looks at me askance I say "Horseradish sauce" to her.

 

Large gangs of bullocks, though, are another matter. I'll usually walk thought a field of bullocks, but I'm a lot more wary, especially if they gang up and start chanting "You're going home in an ambulance".

 

So far, I haven't had any trouble with cows.

 

Dogs, though ... some owners need a dose of discipline.

lol

 

I grew up very close to you and had the finest herd of Jersey cattle in the country in the field at the bottom of our garden. They are a very small breed, so anything bigger does seem enormous in comparison.

 

I had a few scary cattle experiences in my first year of caching last year, and one involved walking on a public path through a large herd, who hadn't been there the previous week. I was basically committed to the walk once I'd seen them (the field drops away down a steep bank in the middle of which is a staircase for the tourists to climb, but once you reach the top, there's little escape once the cows see you). I got up to the cache which was fenced off, but knew I had to return through them and then spotted the bull. He was lying down about 200 yards away, but it increased my nervousness - he was HUGE.

 

Anyway, as the cows had obviously seen me, I just kept up a little chant to myself as I sauntered back, wondering at which stage I would need to leg it. I certainly wanted to, but felt that wouldn't be very helpful as they could probably easily outrun me!

 

As you can see, I lived to tell the tale, but it was nervy stuff. :mad:

 

My account is here: http://www.geocaching.com/seek/log.aspx?LU...34-6f776231b6a4 and for anyone coming to the Mega, I would highly recommend a little detour to do this as it's got spectacular views across a large chunk of Scotland.

 

:(

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I did a series of caches at the weekend and the description said that there were a herd of friendly cows on the way but don't worry they just follow you around. These so called friendly cows spotted me approaching from 500 feet away from there field and came bounding over to the fence. I hate cows so decided to walk the length of the fence and get around the back of them as they were only "dumb" grass eating animals and there little brain power would not be able to figure out what I was up to.

Hey guess what these dumb grass eaters followed me all around the perimeter. Now I could see the cache location in the middle of the field so wasn't going to be defeated by these bovine and started to hit my stick against the fence and shout at them to show them who was boss. This worked on 29 of the thirty cows as they ran off, but the 30th cow stood its ground and actually stamped her front feet at me which made the others stop in there tracks and they came back to this single brown cow standing guard.

I was mega fed up that the last cache of the series was there in the middle of the field and my day would fail due to these four legged burgers on legs standing guard.

An hour passed and they just kept following me around the perimeter so I gave up and started walking down the field.

They followed me until I reached the woods and with me out of sight they went over to the other end of the field. Aha I thought, so I sneaked back up through the woods hidden out from there view, across the top field and over to the stile that gets you in there field. Right its now or never, so I ran over to the post in the middle of the field where the cache was at, but as I was running I saw the cows had spotted me and had started to run back up the field. I reached the post but knew I had no chance of getting the tightly rolled up log book out in time to sign it and put it back before the cows got to me.

That was it I was outta here, I legged it back across the field with thirty cows in hot pursuit. They were gaining on me and my heavy backpack was holding me back and I had no other choice but to dive over the fence when I reached it.

I believe that all the trouble I went through to get this cache in my hand I had the right to claim it as a "found it" even though I had no chance to sign the log.

I honestly think that companies using guard dogs should now use cows to protect there properties as these were some very tenacious and menacing little buggers.

They seemed like a bunch of nutters, all cows were dairy cows but they all seemed super horny and many of them kept on mounting each other. Made me giggle to myself that I had found a field of lesbian cows.

 

Friendly cows my arse.

Edited by Fasterthansid
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Just in case this helps.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00s5...ife_of..._Cows/

is the Iplayer for an informative program on the behaviour of Cows, with quite a good little bet on why they charge sometimes.

 

It was a very interesting program. Particularly the bit about the 'flight zone' which you can use to herd cows!

The most important tip being that preferably don't take a dog with you! If you do and the cows charge at you, let the dog go.

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Warning to those who are going to the Pyrenees:

 

http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/189348...ng-for-ramblers

 

Interesting advice of "Try to avoid the cows and don’t look them in the eye.” That is what I do at first; I try to avoid them and keep watch out of the corner of my eye. If they start coming towards me anyway, then I look at them and confront them (unless there is a way I can easily exit the field before they would reach me). This seems to be in line with what the Ramblers Association says "turning to face them with both arms raised".

 

Yesterday evening whilst caching I needed to walk through 3 fields of cattle. Field 1 they saw me coming across a bridge, blocked my entrance to their field. So ignoring them at this point was not an option (I could not get past them) - I either needed to retreat or get them to move. As I had a escape route (they would not come over the bridge), I looked at them and told them to move please, which they did.

 

In Field 2, the cattle were far enough away; and I purposely took a route which kept my distance. No need for eye contact, and I passed through.

 

In Field 3, they were right on the path; there was no way to avoid them. I walked slowly, hoping they would just move away, and not making eye contact. But 2 bullocks decided to come towards me and confront me. So then I made myself big, and fortunately they turned away.

 

So in short, I try avoidance first. If they are coming after me, I confront them (unless I can easily escape).

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