We were so lucky today. We could easily have lost a good cow in a very strange way. The first thing I noticed amiss was that little Ricky had cuts all over her. Ricky, whose registered name is Frieland Ricky Austin, is a real favorite of mine because she listens when I tell her to behave herself. If she is starting to kick her milker off and I tell her not to she actually stops. Not the norm for cows, I’ll tell you. Tonight there were deep gouges on the inside of her back legs, with flaps of skin hanging loose and nasty slits sliced into her rump. It looked like someone had been after her with a machete. She was also soaking wet. The girls and I speculated about where she could have gotten injured in such a manner and finally decided that she must have gotten tangled in barbed wire some where. We figured we would have to ask the guys to go look in case the fence was down. Then the boss noticed that A) the water in the big, steel watering trough was full of cow manure. B) the trough was leaking pretty badly. C) there was a huge dent in the side.

Detective that he is, he figured out that some big rough cows must have fallen to fighting with poor little Ricky and tipped her over into it. There isn’t much worse than a cow upside down in a water tub. Liz’s Jersey, Heather, was dumped into the other one, made of concrete, when she was younger and would have drowned if Liz and Ralph hadn’t helped her out. Somehow Ricky got herself out and we are very thankful. Alan told us when he came in from feeding the cows that he had heard a commotion in the afternoon, but when he looked down all he saw was a few cows hurrying away. We figure that either 16 or 471 did the dirty deed. They are both massive and miserable and like to fight.

Anyhow, we treated Ricky’s cuts with Blue Coat and checked her over for any real serious injuries. She was chewing her cud and looking pretty good so we turned her back outside after milking. I am real glad she didn’t drown or get too badly damaged. I like her.