Horrible ride today (this is long - and graphic)

[Bicyclette]

My apologies to any Belgians who may be on this board (in advance) - I left for my ride today - went down our road and stopped because my brake had somehow beeen disconnected - we live in the middle of farmland on the edge of the Ardennes region and we are surrounded by wheatfields and cows. I have ranted to my husband on numerous occasions about the way the people around here treat their animals. In my opinion it's criminal. I have been known to feed "our" cows celery and crackers and toss the mowed grass over the fence for them and talk to them. So I was stopped on my bike and I turned around to talk to the cows and I saw this poor cow with her ear just covered in blood... and her eye - in fact I wasn't even sure she still had an eye it was so mangled ... and the whole upper half of her body was tinged pink. It was as though blood was oozing out her pores. I've never seen anything like it and I hope never to again. How could anybody allow anything to suffer like that. I told my husband just this morning that as much as I love it out here we need to move - I won't be able to make it through another summer out here. I get so upset about this because I just can't understand how nobody can care about these cows. I don't like having the cows in our field because of the flies - but I watch over them while they're here and I still throw grass over the fence whenever I mow the yard and if they get injured I keep a close eye out for them because nobody else will. This will haunt me for a long time. Sorry this was so long. Thanx for giving me a place to get this out.

Pat

[Geonz]

Awful... but if you move the cows will still be there... and there won't be anybody to throw grass to 'em...

[Bikingmomof3]

How dreadful. It is nice to know you are doing what you can to help the cows.

[Bicyclette]

Geonz - yeah - there is that whole grass thing.

I know it probably seems silly to be upset about this but I'm such a wuss about this kind of stuff. I do appreciate your replies. Thanx to both of you :o

[Nanci]

Maybe the farmer doesn't know! Is there a way to contact him? Drive up to the house? Cows can be worth thousands of dollars. The cows across the street from me are valued in the tens of thousands, each. Hopefully it just happened, and he doesn't know, and she's probably been rubbing it to get flys off, etc, so it looks bad...

Nanci

[Nokomis]

Did someone sabbotage your bike?! :eek:

What are the animal rights / protection laws in your area? That would break my heart - so good of you to toss the grass over the fence. Stay strong & do what you can *hug*

[RoadRaven]

Hey, Bicyclette, as a partner in a sheep and cattle farm, and having been faring for 20 years, be really careful about giving cattle lawn clippings

If you give it to them straight away and they eat it straight away, fine.

But even left around for an hour or so on a warm day, the clippings start to heat up and ferment - on a hot day the process is even quicker. The cows will develop a form of bloat and may die.

Just be cautious in when you share your clippings.

Also - Had that injury been there for days? Our cattle have horns and sometimes injure each other unintetionally... and we don't always notice immmediately (With 300 cattle and a big ammount of land, its difficult). Did you inform the farmer/land-owner?

Good on you for keeping an eye out for the animals - some farmers are too careless in their attitudes to animal welfare.

[Nanci]

As long as the clippings are spread out thinnly, they should be fine. Hey, cows can't founder like horses, can they, when they get into green grass after not having been on it? (Don't think so.) (Reminds me of this patient of mine, the one who told me how they do c-sections on cows [standing up] who said God made horses first, and worked out all his mistakes before making cows.)

[Bicyclette]

Thanx for all the concerned replies...

RoadRaven - geez - I didn't know that - I'll be cautious - usually once the cows get the idea they're following us around when we mow to get the grass and usually it's gone the same day :D ...

Honestly we're talking about a herd of maybe 20 cows in this field - no big numbers - these people just do not seem to take good care of the livestock - our field has 7 cows in it - no shelter - no fresh water - barely any shade -there is a stream - but it's not a flowing stream and in this heatwave it has to almost dry!! weeks go by with no one coming to check on these girls. Every year it's like this. I was riding on the towpath by the river one time and a calf fell in and couldn't get out again - there is no fence separating their field from the river - luckily someone was out at the nearest house and I talked to him ( as well as I am able - my French is atrocious ) and he had already called the police...

they just don't seem to care - and the fields where you see the cows are many times not the owners fields so the owners live somewhere else - I have no idea who these cows belong to.

I also have no idea about the regulations here in Belgium - I am a guest of this nation (we're American military) so I really have no idea as to how these things work here - if I see a neighbor I will drag them down there to show them - I'm sure they probably know who owns what around here...

Thanx again for letting me air my concerns. Like I've said before... I love this place :o

[Kimmyt]

If they only have 20 cows then they probably live with a very low (very, very low) income. Put yourself in these folks shoes, and while I don't condone it, I do understand it. They probably don't even have health insurance, I know several of my friends from rural areas didn't. A cow gets sick, ok we'll keep an eye on it. But if it's still producing milk, why pay the money to put the cow on medication (when you won't be able to use it's milk during treatment and lose the money from that too) when you can just let it recover on it's own and still get the milk from it.

1 cow may not seem like it produces a lot of milk, but if you think that these people are relying on only 20 total, then it's a bit more understandable.

Sad, nonetheless.

K.

[Nanci]

BF went on a call a few weeks ago, about a place where the cows were starving to death. Apparently _many_ had died, like 30 or 40?, before the neighbors thought to call in the authorities. The cow owner had died, and the relatives were trying to well off the property, but didn't know how to/didn't care to feed the cows in the interum. Nice...