Devonshire April May 17

The Old Vet’nary
by Ken Watson
Animal Antics
a friendly, family practice
A
farmer client told me this
tale of one of his cows. One
morning, sitting at breakfast,
their peace was shattered by the
bawling of a cow outside their
window. When they went out they
found a heifer from a group of incalvers
two or three fields away,
and she was obviously telling them
something. She was freshly calved,
but there was no sign of any calf. To
get there she must have opened at
least two gates, but she had been an
orphan calf, brought up on the bottle
and wise in the ways of people. As
soon as she saw them she started
to back away, still bawling, and
then turned to head back the way
she had came, yet looking back
every so often to make sure they
were following. So they did. They
followed her back to the field she
had been grazing. Once there she
led them to a corner where the land
dropped away and was filled with
brambles, and of course in there was
one of those vast industrial chicken
farms. As he happened to look
back to ensure the spread was even,
he swore he could see something
moving. He stopped and got out
and went back to look. He found a
newly hatched chick, a late arrival,
and brought it back to his cab and
put it into a cardboard box. Every
farm tractor cab has plenty of stray
corn seed and she stayed there
contentedly pecking until the end
of the day. After some period of
'Wilson'
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by Richard Woodward
she sat on the throne, back to the
open window, her cat came back in.
It’s normal route being blocked, it
had to divert to the side and looking
down for a foothold spotted the
flush lever. His subsequent leap
from this secondary step activated
the flush and my client received an
unexpected shower.
her newborn calf. Naturally they
rescued it and mother and calf were
reunited. Obviously very few cows
would have done this, but she had
grown up regarding human beings
as the providers of everything she
needed in life.
Another farmer was spreading
chicken manure purchased from
being spoiled in the farm kitchen, she
was introduced to the farmer’s small
flock of egg-layers. Surprisingly
they accepted her and she lived
a contented life with them and in
the passage of time produced eggs
of her own.
If you watch a cat jumping down
from a high place, it will usually
first place one foot over the edge
ready for the spring. More than
once this caused trouble in my own
household if the high place is the
top of the freezer, for over that edge
are the sensitive control buttons. A
client told me a variation on this
theme. Her cat was in the habit of
sunning itself on a flat roof which it
reached via the bathroom window
and the toilet cistern. One day, as
I must tell you this anecdote about
my own family. Two of my greatgrand-children
were visiting the other
two. The host mother, desperate
to find something for them to do,
said, “Why don’t you go and feed
the orphan lamb?” So off they went,
a full bottle ready, with mother
watching from the kitchen window.
Four children, one girl and three
boys, aged 2-5. Guess who was
in charge; well she was the eldest.
Just imagine the noise, but the
lamb didn’t care as long as it was
getting it’s milk. It was showing
appreciation by furiously wagging
its tail, as lambs do. Suddenly its
tail flew off. Now this is a natural
consequence of the rubber ring
method of docking. You know that,
and I know that, but they didn’t know
that! There was a sudden silence,
and a few surreptitious glances over
their shoulders. On brave soul even
picked the withered tail up and tried
to fit it back on. Eventually, after
meaningful looks at each other, they
returned to tell a mother who was
trying to keep a straight face about
it. - Ken
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