Author Topic: Cattle again...  (Read 6465 times)

Innominate Man

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Re: Cattle again...
« Reply #30 on: 14:53:35, 17/06/19 »
Walking in Austria this week and there scores of notices up about behaviour round cows. They are up in hotels, on information boards and on gates across footpaths.  I wonder if they have been having a problem and if so, with what? Cows or tourists?
We crossed a very confined field today with cows and calves in it and the obligatory notice on the gate.  A couple of cows looked us over and one broke wind in our general direction but I did not reply in kind.


A French Taunter cow on tour in Austria   ;D
Only a hill but all of life to me, up there between the sunset and the sea. 
Geoffrey Winthrop Young

ninthace

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Re: Cattle again...
« Reply #31 on: 15:06:38, 17/06/19 »

A French Taunter cow on tour in Austria   ;D
Not hint of elderberries either!
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gunwharfman

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Re: Cattle again...
« Reply #32 on: 15:11:42, 17/06/19 »
I've had issues with cows, including being biffed in the chest by one and lifted off my feet!

However, I do remember that when I walked the Stevenson Way (GR70) in France, except for one 200m section en route, all cows were fenced off from the footpaths for the whole route, about 120km I think. Cow areas just had 1-metre long metal poles between the hiker and the animal, just bashed in the ground with a hammer and one strand of wire connecting them.

On that walk, I had no problems at all.

BuzyG

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Re: Cattle again...
« Reply #33 on: 21:17:26, 17/06/19 »
Walking in Austria this week and there scores of notices up about behaviour round cows. They are up in hotels, on information boards and on gates across footpaths.  I wonder if they have been having a problem and if so, with what? Cows or tourists?
We crossed a very confined field today with cows and calves in it and the obligatory notice on the gate.  A couple of cows looked us over and one broke wind in our general direction but I did not reply in kind.


 ;D O0

April

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Re: Cattle again...
« Reply #34 on: 06:26:52, 18/06/19 »
Waving arms about, making yourself look bigger 9 times out of 10 may be okay, walking through them with confidence may be okay - but believe me as someone who has had experience of being thrown around like a rag doll, and  seriously injured, then never, and I mean never, take them for granted...dog or no dog.

I totally agree with you Murphy. If we had taken the standard advice during our last encounter with charging cattle we wouldn't be here to tell the tale. If we had stood still making our selves look big with arms aloft we would have been flattened by them like a pair of skittles. They couldn't stop when they reached the stile we had just managed to get over, they skidded on the steep slope of mud and ended up 6 feet past it. Squeaky wasn't with us so no dog to blame.

The people who have had no serious problems with cattle are very lucky and are wrong to imply that the people who do have problems is because it is how they have behaved and their own fault or it is their incorrect perception of how the cattle are behaving. I know the difference between an inquisitive and playful bullock and a charging aggressive bullock. In forty plus years of walking most of the encounters with cattle have been absolutely no problem but there have been a few instances when I have been lucky not to have been injured or killed. As Murphy says never take them for granted.
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barewirewalker

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Re: Cattle again...
« Reply #35 on: 10:08:54, 18/06/19 »
I said to myself that I wouldn’t post on this topic.................... Suppose it acts as a reminder for us all to take care around cattle particularly as many have young at this time of year ....
I suppose those of us, who posted on this forum for a long time see topics come and go and come back and back. But there are new members joining all the time so if I repeat myself will those, who have been around abit, not yawn.


If walkers took the time to learn a bit about cattle, then they might help the cause by added fact rather than innuendo to the cause, there has been a suspicion, within agricultural circles that the Limousin breed throws up aggressive females. A farmer in mid-Wales, near Lambister, told me that it was worse in cross breds, now if this is true I have no way to corroborate it. But it was first brought to my attention at a major county agricultural show, when I was Cheif Steward organising the Horse and Cattle parades, in the bar after the cattle stewards were pulling my leg and subject of Limousin cows came up. Many agreed on this aggressive streak, but they would only admit to it if they were thinking that they were talking in private and off the record.

I read somewhere that a suspected aggressive streak had been bred out of the Limousin. An admission? Certainly somewhere else the industry had gone to the trouble to publish a vets finding that there is no basis in fact that there is no provable breed aggression in beef animals.

Anyone with knowledge of animal husbandry will know of recessive genes, the Lambister farmer told myself and Mrs BWW of the incident, when this aggressive cow single him out and cornered him in a remote barn and had he not known of an escape route (from childhood days playing there) the cow would have killed him.

I have taken the trouble to look at Limousin photos, not a breed that was covered in my student days, but I try to keep up to date recognizing the many continental breeds that have proliferated over the last 20 -30 years, just keep safe. I have been fortunate both as a farmer and as a walker. Mrs BWW and I like to handle animals if they are inquisitive and come to hand, the nearest to injury I have come to has been when giving aid to a distressed or trapped animal.

But if I were to report an aggressive animal I would hope that I could give both information on sex and breed.
BWW
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sussamb

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Re: Cattle again...
« Reply #36 on: 10:38:26, 18/06/19 »
As Murphy says never take them for granted.

Definitely good advice :)
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Slogger

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Re: Cattle again...
« Reply #37 on: 16:32:32, 18/06/19 »
Definitely good advice :)
You are right Sussamb, that is good advice, never take them for granted, they are animals and can be unpredictable.If anyone has had a bad experience then of course they are going to be apprehensive next time.During my recent Offa's Dyke Path walk, going through the section in the Severn Valley before Llanymynech, you go through many fields with cattle in them, some young bullocks, some cows, and some mixed.I had just come through one with medium aged bulls into an empty field. A guy was sat down making himself a brew and seemed in a state of shock. Chatting to him he told me had, had an encounter with the bulls that blocked his way out of his previous field. I told him that they were blocking the path on top of the Dyke in the field that I had just I come through, but they parted without problem. I told him to be confident and hold his line and it would be ok. He seemed grateful for the advice, but I felt for him, he was going the other way and would have to negotiate his way past all that cattle that I had already come across.

mananddog

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Re: Cattle again...
« Reply #38 on: 08:59:18, 19/06/19 »

I read somewhere that a suspected aggressive streak had been bred out of the Limousin. An admission? Certainly somewhere else the industry had gone to the trouble to publish a vets finding that there is no basis in fact that there is no provable breed aggression in beef animals.

I have taken the trouble to look at Limousin photos, not a breed that was covered in my student days, but I try to keep up to date recognizing the many continental breeds that have proliferated over the last 20 -30 years, just keep safe. I have been fortunate both as a farmer and as a walker.



My experience is certainly to avoid Limousin if possible. I have had a few run ins with them but one comes to mind in particular, I was walking in Northumberland and a bunch of limmies in the next field started to run and "chase" then they came to the fence.... About 5 jumped the fence (breaking the wire and a fence post) and landed in the field where I was. Fortunately they were so surprised at what they had done and realised that the rest of the herd were not with them that they stopped running and just stood looking at their mates.

barewirewalker

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Re: Cattle again...
« Reply #39 on: 10:09:41, 19/06/19 »
Glad I am not the only one then to suspicious of the Lim.  ;)
Mrs BWW and I were walking through a field close to the Berwyn area and I had noticed a Lim bull with the cows some way off. We were attempting to keep to the righteous way as close as possible as I was interested to see if the footpaths in this part of Powys were waymarked. We had a lady friend with us, who would have immediately got into a panic if I had drawn attention to this, just because it was bull. We got by without any trouble and as we were about to leave the field Mrs BWW thought the bull was looking right at her.

 It did appear so but he seemed quite placid, my lesson from this encounter:

Check with a friend to see if my recognition of breed type is correct. I suspect it was pure bred or pedigree. I would have liked to have asked the farmer, but there was no one about as we passed the farm.

Take note of the dams, farmers tend to select female stock from there calf crop, were there X bred dams.

With this herd there seemed to be no newly born calves or even sucklers at foot.

What I would be doing if I was still an active NFU member, would be  advocating posting a risk assessment of a herd in a field with a single suckler herd or multiple suckler, so that the members of the public entering the field could see that the herdsman was on top of his job. But what do I know I left farming 40 years ago, with a redundancy payout and had to take H&S seriously in the business I developed subsequently.  8) .
Trouble with this course of action, it would admit that there can be aggressive streaks in some cattle  ???
 
BWW
Their Land is in Our Country.

mananddog

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Re: Cattle again...
« Reply #40 on: 11:09:07, 19/06/19 »
I have encountered a lot of limmy  bulls and they seem placid enough. It is the cows I do not trust.

barewirewalker

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Re: Cattle again...
« Reply #41 on: 11:14:04, 19/06/19 »
Too true  O0
BWW
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Slogger

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Re: Cattle again...
« Reply #42 on: 17:41:04, 19/06/19 »
Ah, Limousin, that's what they were. Walking the Offas, a herd of youngish muscular bulls, very lively chasing after me, stopped every time i did, they wanted a closer look, very jumpy creatures, and could they run at speed. I was playing with them, they were very easilly spooked, I stopped, they stopped, I ran they ran, I shouted at them they backed away flustered not knowing what to do. I was perfectly safe though.They were on the other side of a substantial headgerow as I walked down the track next to the field! :)

gunwharfman

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Re: Cattle again...
« Reply #43 on: 17:44:32, 19/06/19 »
Last year, it was a blistering hot day, I walked from the campsite at Llanvelherine and turned left into some fields on Offas Dyke path. I walked through a field with cows in it but they were far from me. I walked up to a 3' wide gate, then a short 8' length walkway of wooden boards, then another 3' wide gate again at the end of the boards. These gates connected one field with another.

The boards looked so inviting, no one around, so I decided to lay down and have a sleep. A while later I woke up to find that both entrance/exits had about 20 cows just standing at each end, just looking at me! I never heard a thing, they just sneaked up on me, I had a small shock when I opened my eyes!

I was in no hurry to get going so I took my time to get organized, hoping they would just wander off with boredom. They didn't move, so I put my rucksack on and attempted to open the gate but the blighters wouldn't budge! In the end, I had to tap a couple of their rumps with my hiking stick to make them move away! They did, all of 4', but it was enough for me to open the gate, I then full of anxiety stepped in amongst them. It was fine they didn't bother me at all, just too hot a day I think. What they did do however was to make me walk through a sea of cows muck to get to the other side of the field.

BuzyG

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Re: Cattle again...
« Reply #44 on: 21:55:39, 19/06/19 »
Last year, it was a blistering hot day, I walked from the campsite at Llanvelherine and turned left into some fields on Offas Dyke path. I walked through a field with cows in it but they were far from me. I walked up to a 3' wide gate, then a short 8' length walkway of wooden boards, then another 3' wide gate again at the end of the boards. These gates connected one field with another.

The boards looked so inviting, no one around, so I decided to lay down and have a sleep. A while later I woke up to find that both entrance/exits had about 20 cows just standing at each end, just looking at me! I never heard a thing, they just sneaked up on me, I had a small shock when I opened my eyes!

I was in no hurry to get going so I took my time to get organized, hoping they would just wander off with boredom. They didn't move, so I put my rucksack on and attempted to open the gate but the blighters wouldn't budge! In the end, I had to tap a couple of their rumps with my hiking stick to make them move away! They did, all of 4', but it was enough for me to open the gate, I then full of anxiety stepped in amongst them. It was fine they didn't bother me at all, just too hot a day I think. What they did do however was to make me walk through a sea of cows muck to get to the other side of the field.


That had me chuckling.  O0

 

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