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Never hug a Swiss cow, hikers told
'Reports of unpleasant meetings' with cattle prompt new ground rules
Reuters

Updated: 9:08 a.m. PT Aug 29, 2006
GENEVA, Switzerland - Keep your distance. Avoid eye contact. And even if it looks cute, never hug a Swiss cow.

Responding to numerous “reports of unpleasant meetings between hikers and cattle” along Switzerland’s picture-perfect Alpine trails this summer, the Swiss Hiking Federation has laid down a few ground rules.

“Leave the animals in peace and do not touch them. Never caress a calf,” according to the group’s guidance, posted on the Web site www.swisshiking.ch.

“Do not scare the animals or look them directly in the eye. Do not wave sticks. Give a precise blow to the muzzle of the cow in the event of absolute need,” it advises.

Evelyne Zaugg of the Swiss Hiking Federation said that while there were no precise statistics on incidents involving cows, walkers are reporting more run-ins than a few years ago.

She said new rearing practices, where the animals spend less time around farmers and wander in pastures with little human interaction, were partly to blame for the anti-social behavior.

How to react?
Many walkers also panic when confronted by cattle.

“Hikers lose reality about the cows. They don’t know how to react when a cow appears,” Zaugg said.

If approached by a cow, the hiking association recommends that walkers remain calm and slowly leave the area without turning their backs on the animal.

Michel Darbellay of the Service for the Prevention of Agricultural Accidents, a private group that helped produce the Swiss Hiking Federation’s lowdown, said walkers had little to fear if they stayed 20 to 50 yards from any cow.

But dogs attract cow trouble, he warned.

Mother cows consider dogs a threat to their calves and tend to respond aggressively to their presence. It is when the dogs retreat towards their owners that walkers are most likely to face a charging cow, Darbellay said.

“The best practice is to maintain a fair distance and keep dogs on a leash,” he said.

Copyright 2006 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved. Republication or redistribution of Reuters content is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Reuters.

CowBoy Joe

Cow sFight Back

Russian cows get new feed: marijuana

Santa Says, 'Be Sweet to Animals—Don't Wear Them'

'I don’t know what the milk will be like after this,' drug agency officer says

MOSCOW - Russia’s long winter will just fly by for a herd of Russian cows which, a newspaper reported on Tuesday, will be fed confiscated marijuana over the cold months.
Drug workers said they adopted the unusual form of animal husbandry after they were forced to destroy the sunflowers and maize crops that the 40 ton of marijuana had been planted among, Novye Izvestia daily reported.
“There is simply no other way out. You see, the fields are planted with feed crops and if we remove it all the cows will have nothing to eat,” a Federal Drugs Control Service spokeswoman for the Urals region of Sverdlovsk told the paper. “I don’t know what the milk will be like after this.”

Drug use in Russia took off with the decline of the Soviet Union and police have been fighting drug smugglers — often shipping heroin from Afghanistan — for years.
Such large hauls are relatively common, although they are normally burned.

I LOVE Cows

The Three Amigos

Oreo cookie cows? Yes, there are "belted" bovines out there (you're not seeing things!). What kind of belted cows are there? According to the "A Field Guild to Cows" there are several possibilities. One is the Dutch Belted. These bovines are relatively small in stature (for a cow) and have a smooth coat. They are black on both ends and have a white belt around the middle that is at least 6" wide. Another possibility is a belted Galloway (not all Galloways are belted). They can be brownish black, red or dun. They are stockily built and in the winter are shaggy. Finally, Welsh Blacks and Swiss Browns can be belted, but these are rarer.

Cow Joke

There was a farmer who had a brown cow and a white cow and he wanted to get them bred, so borrowed his neighbor's bull and turned it loose in the pasture. He told his son to watch and come in and tell him when the bull was finished. "Yeah daddy, yeah daddy," said the little boy. After a while the boy came into the living where his father was talking with some friends. "Say, Pop," said the boy. "Yes," replied his father. "The bull just screwed the brown cow!" There was a sudden lull in the conversation. The father said "Excuse me" and took his son outside. "Son, you mustn't use language like that in front of company. You should say 'The bull "surprised" the brown cow'. Now go and watch and tell me when the bull "surprises" the white cow." The father went back inside the house. After a while the boy came in and said, "Hey, Daddy!" "Yes, son. Did the bull "surprise" the white cow?" "He sure did, Pop! He screwed the brown cow again!"