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Racing Cows

She was mostly in Hot Gossip, but apparently joined Pan's People right at the end. Although I can't find her name mentioned in the line-up lists on the Pan's People Wikipedia page.

*stalker alert!* :D:p

(who the hell would know this about Sarah Brightman?)
 
At first I was confused by this list, but then remembered something that people not knowing bovines, probably didn't know. Interesting to me is that farmers "feed" their cattle magnets (one only). The magnet (at least the ones I played with as a kid) is about 3-4 inches long, smooth cylindrical. It is injected (not exactly sure if injected or inserted is the right word) through a tube that is inserted into the cow's mouth to its stomach. The magnet stays there to attract any wire that the cow may eat. It protects the cow from a punctured stomach that would happen if the wire remained free floating in it.

Cattle don't intentionally eat wire, but you never know what they might come across when grazing.

The modern danger to cattle (I've heard) are Chinese lanterns (aka UFOs) landing in fields, as these have a wire frame which will be eaten with the paper. I remember many times stopping a small Massey Ferguson or Dexter tractor (with a minimal engine cowling) in a field and being surrounded by cows - sometimes there would be some choice cussing as I couldn't get it started again. Don't know what the bovine fascination with ignition leads was.
 
The modern danger to cattle (I've heard) are Chinese lanterns (aka UFOs) landing in fields, as these have a wire frame which will be eaten with the paper. I remember many times stopping a small Massey Ferguson or Dexter tractor (with a minimal engine cowling) in a field and being surrounded by cows - sometimes there would be some choice cussing as I couldn't get it started again. Don't know what the bovine fascination with ignition leads was.

Maybe they just wanted to help and were getting soo frustrated that you couldn't speak moo? :)

Yep those damn chinese lanterns don't get me started!! :mad:

Sollywos x
 
Maybe they just wanted to help and were getting soo frustrated that you couldn't speak moo? :)

Yep those damn chinese lanterns don't get me started!! :mad:

Sollywos x
I live in a rural area and we once lost internet because the signal came Wi-Fi from the neighboring town to a router attached to a fence in Mr. Collins field, being the highest point in the town, and his cows ate the router. So as I understand it they eat a lot of stuff.
 
I thought only goats did stuff like that (eat routers and wires and other inedibles). This is a very informative thread!
 
Farm animals are like 3 year old kids, anything that can be put in their mouth will end up in their mouth. My nephew, when little, went out into the garden with his Mum as she hung out the washing - after nearly 15 minutes of silence she realised he had gone. Calling out for him he re-appeared at the bottom of the garden holding the longest, cleanest, pinkest earthworm known to Nature. You just don't ask.
 
I thought only goats did stuff like that (eat routers and wires and other inedibles). This is a very informative thread!

Isn't it just! I grew up in the countryside, my uncle was a cowman, I 'helped' the farmer drive the cows to pasture on my way to school, one summer my friend and I tried to train one to ride as a horse (we only managed about 5 or 6 steps before falling off ha!ha!) once I answered what I thought was a knock at the door to find a cow standing there, we used their empty horms to try to catch newts etc and we did about their digestive system in biology so I thought I was pretty well up on cows! Seems I wasn't lol!

Sollywos x
 
Farm animals are like 3 year old kids, anything that can be put in their mouth will end up in their mouth. My nephew, when little, went out into the garden with his Mum as she hung out the washing - after nearly 15 minutes of silence she realised he had gone. Calling out for him he re-appeared at the bottom of the garden holding the longest, cleanest, pinkest earthworm known to Nature. You just don't ask.

Nice one bless him! Had he actually eaten any?

Too much information alert!

When I was very little I used to eat soil I loved the crunchyness and the smell especially after a light shower. I hasten to add it was good soil having been well tended for at least 100 years.

One morning I was constipated sitting on the potty and dad was rubbing my back when he asked me to give up trying and stand up. He'd seen a worm poking out and it seemed to be still alive!!! Gently extracting it, he and mum were astonished to see it looked remarkable like an earthworm rather than an intestinal one so he wrapped it up carefully, sat me on the seat on his crossbar and peddalled off to the next village but one to see the doctor. I can still remember the journey, feeling a bit special and enjoying quality time with dad and far too young to be particularly bothered.

Doctor Westbury (why can I remember his name from 67 years ago but not my current one when I ring up to make an appointment?) agreed it looked like an earthworm and sent it off for confirmation. It was indeed! After this amount of time I can't confirm if it did actually emerge alive but there is no doubt it was live when it entered my mouth in a handful of soil! What I can't remember is if I'd actually noticed it? Had I eaten others but actually chewed them up and got a bit of extra protein?

Found this on one of those quicky answers thingys on the net:-

'These squiggly creatures can be eaten raw or cooked, especially for small children who are invariably drawn to earthworms. Not sure why, that's just the way it is! While eating worms has its nutritional merits, there are some cautionary measures to consider. ... Wild worms can carry parasites and germs that can be harmful.'

Makes you wonder if there is some vital trace element that drives the instinct which receeds once the yuck factor kicks in? Maybe we should all be licking a worm a day for optimum health?

Anyway to keep this on topic it seems less cruel to eat a worm than raise bovines to eat ... specially now we've learnt so much more about them. ;)

Sollywos x
 
I'm amazed it survived being in your gut! But you were just a small child, so maybe stomach acid isn't as strong?
 
I'm amazed it survived being in your gut! But you were just a small child, so maybe stomach acid isn't as strong?

Also not so far to travel? It certainly came out still looking like an earth worm except that it had lost it's colour and was whitish.

Sollywos x
 
Hokay, no spaghetti for me this evening.

ha!ha! My early experience didn't make me blase. The other day my son served up fat noodles instead of the thin ones, tastes the same but I just couldn't eat them!

Sollywos x
 
I've enjoyed this thread and all the cow-related contributions immensely, in spite of the fact that I had a traumatic experience with a cow when I was about three years old. No, I did not live in a rural area, but instead in a South Jersey suburb across the river from Philadelphia. Which was where you went to visit The Philadelphia Zoo.

In that day and age, they had an attraction at the zoo called "Noah's Ark," which was essentially a petting zoo, with rabbits and ducks and goats and sheep and other animals the zoo officials thought suitable for little kids to get up close to ... including a cow. The cow was somehow secured, so it wasn't roaming around trampling on little kids. However, I got close enough that I was able to stand right in front of it, looking up at what seemed to me to be a behemoth.

The cow was looking down at me, too, as I looked up. That was when its monstrous tongue slurped down on my forehead and proceeded to begin munching on my bangs. Long after my parents disengaged me somehow from the beast, and my screams and sobs finally subsided, they told me the cow thought my blonde hair looked tasty because it looked like yellow straw to her. I did not find this soothing.

Nightmares ensued. One early morning approaching dawn I clearly heard it, the sound of a cow mooing, outside in the driveway below my window! It was coming to get me to eat me up! I couldn't help but sit up in bed and scream!!! My mother came running, asking me what was wrong. When I said "there's a cow outside! I can hear it! It's going to get me!" she was initially confused. Years later she told me how upset I got when she started laughing. But in the same way that I couldn't help but scream, she couldn't help but laugh. She figured out that what I had heard was my father snoring in the next room ... He and I both were teased about it for years after.

To this day I can still remember exactly how that giant, rough, sandpaper tongue felt when it slurped against my forehead. Not pleasant! That tongue was at least as large as my whole forehead.
 
I've enjoyed this thread and all the cow-related contributions immensely, in spite of the fact that I had a traumatic experience with a cow when I was about three years old. No, I did not live in a rural area, but instead in a South Jersey suburb across the river from Philadelphia. Which was where you went to visit The Philadelphia Zoo.

In that day and age, they had an attraction at the zoo called "Noah's Ark," which was essentially a petting zoo, with rabbits and ducks and goats and sheep and other animals the zoo officials thought suitable for little kids to get up close to ... including a cow. The cow was somehow secured, so it wasn't roaming around trampling on little kids. However, I got close enough that I was able to stand right in front of it, looking up at what seemed to me to be a behemoth.

The cow was looking down at me, too, as I looked up. That was when its monstrous tongue slurped down on my forehead and proceeded to begin munching on my bangs. Long after my parents disengaged me somehow from the beast, and my screams and sobs finally subsided, they told me the cow thought my blonde hair looked tasty because it looked like yellow straw to her. I did not find this soothing.

Nightmares ensued. One early morning approaching dawn I clearly heard it, the sound of a cow mooing, outside in the driveway below my window! It was coming to get me to eat me up! I couldn't help but sit up in bed and scream!!! My mother came running, asking me what was wrong. When I said "there's a cow outside! I can hear it! It's going to get me!" she was initially confused. Years later she told me how upset I got when she started laughing. But in the same way that I couldn't help but scream, she couldn't help but laugh. She figured out that what I had heard was my father snoring in the next room ... He and I both were teased about it for years after.

To this day I can still remember exactly how that giant, rough, sandpaper tongue felt when it slurped against my forehead. Not pleasant! That tongue was at least as large as my whole forehead.

You kept us waiting Kate In the Desert but that just has to be the best post in the thread!!

A truly scary 'it happened to me' account I'm sorry you had to suffer for it! I laughed with your mum I'm afraid but I gave young you a sypathetic hug as well. It was alarming enough to me when I opened the door to find the cow that time but at least I was older, used to them and it didn't try to eat me! Yikes ... poor little you. :(

Sollywos x
 
You kept us waiting Kate In the Desert but that just has to be the best post in the thread!!

A truly scary 'it happened to me' account I'm sorry you had to suffer for it! I laughed with your mum I'm afraid but I gave young you a sypathetic hug as well. It was alarming enough to me when I opened the door to find the cow that time but at least I was older, used to them and it didn't try to eat me! Yikes ... poor little you. :(

Sollywos x
And I send you a virtual hug right back!

I long since stopped having nightmares about cows, btw. I found that making people laugh by telling that story, especially at parties, turned out to be a fair recompense for the suffering toddler's trauma!
 
And I send you a virtual hug right back!

I long since stopped having nightmares about cows, btw. I found that making people laugh by telling that story, especially at parties, turned out to be a fair recompense for the suffering toddler's trauma!

Thankyou :)

So pleased you've suffered no long term trauma! Something like that could have scarred for life!!

Sollywos x
 
A horse tried to eat my hair once, but I was at least 9 or 10 and loved horses, so it was a compliment as far as I was concerned.
But a monsterously huge strange creature nearly scalping you with a raspy tongue while trying to eat you would be really terrifying at 3 years old! So glad you can laugh about it and your father's moo-snore now.
 
A horse tried to eat my hair once, but I was at least 9 or 10 and loved horses, so it was a compliment as far as I was concerned.
But a monsterously huge strange creature nearly scalping you with a raspy tongue while trying to eat you would be really terrifying at 3 years old! So glad you can laugh about it and your father's moo-snore now.
My inner child thanks you for your compassion, and I thank you too for that marvellous word, "moo-snore." It's downright onomatopoetic! As a matter of fact, I believe I shall steal it (if you don't mind) should I have occasion to tell this story again.

Isn't there a thread somewhere on encounters with animals? I should definitely read it sometime. I suppose thinking you're about to be consumed as an afternoon snack by a huge bovine beast is somewhat Fortean, as it engenders "pan-ic," LOL!!
 
The cow was looking down at me, too, as I looked up. That was when its monstrous tongue slurped down on my forehead and proceeded to begin munching on my bangs. Long after my parents disengaged me somehow from the beast, and my screams and sobs finally subsided, they told me the cow thought my blonde hair looked tasty because it looked like yellow straw to her. I did not find this soothing .

Aw bless - admittedly that tongue is unbelievably long. My little sister was in a pushchair with the hood down (drizzle) as Mum and me waited for a herd to pass, cows are curious (not just odd but inquisitive) and one trotted over to take a look under the hood. Sister and cow face were a millimetre apart, I don't remember if there was a snort or a lick or a moo but I do remember the look on Sis's face afterwards - 'oh FFS now what ?!' Hadyn was a toddler on the neighbouring farm who'd follow his father into the milking shed and when I'd visited (they sold ice cream) he'd fallen over backwards in the yard. He was covered in shit from the top of his head to the back of his heels and it had hardened - a three foot tall Excremental shambling like a zombie as he couldn't drop his arms. So sweet.
 
Hadyn was a toddler on the neighbouring farm who'd follow his father into the milking shed and when I'd visited (they sold ice cream) he'd fallen over backwards in the yard. He was covered in shit from the top of his head to the back of his heels and it had hardened - a three foot tall Excremental shambling like a zombie as he couldn't drop his arms. So sweet.
:rollingw:
 
Aw bless - admittedly that tongue is unbelievably long. My little sister was in a pushchair with the hood down (drizzle) as Mum and me waited for a herd to pass, cows are curious (not just odd but inquisitive) and one trotted over to take a look under the hood. Sister and cow face were a millimetre apart, I don't remember if there was a snort or a lick or a moo but I do remember the look on Sis's face afterwards - 'oh FFS now what ?!' Hadyn was a toddler on the neighbouring farm who'd follow his father into the milking shed and when I'd visited (they sold ice cream) he'd fallen over backwards in the yard. He was covered in shit from the top of his head to the back of his heels and it had hardened - a three foot tall Excremental shambling like a zombie as he couldn't drop his arms. So sweet.

I can smell it from here :dpoo:

Yes it does get a crust on quick doesn't it! Oh dear and your poor sis I can picture that look love her. :)

Sollywos x
 
When I was a kid one of my neighbors had a bull in its fenced in yard all by itself. I recon it had at least 30 acres. If you were to walk by the fence and he was on the other side of his pasture he was sure to run at full speed to check out who was near his property. I saw [after the fact] by a few minutes that he was more than able to go through a barbed wire fence with a wooden one [two fence security] . I even saw a field hand try to coerce him back into his area with a wooden baseball bat [snapped in half over his head] it didn't faze him one bit. He was just the top bull of the time. There were other ones but not as ornery as he was.
 
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