How to get bitten by a cow in one easy lesson...

Tuesday, November 11, 2008

Although this sounds like it may be a common thing for people associated with cattle, cows actually bite very rarely - you see it takes unique specific technique to be truely bitten by a cow ( or in my case a steer - which is a bull without it's...well you know). Because cattle are in general timid creatures, it's quite difficult to get them to come near you, besides actually manage to get bitten by one of them. Another complication in the attempt to get bitten is that cows actually don't have any top teeth until right at the back of their mouth where they have some big .. I mean BIG molars. So to try this you either need a cow in a cattle crush (so he cannot move) or a poddy calf - hand raised by yourself, so he feels comfortable with coming up to you. For my experience I used the latter.



Step one: Leave a gate open - ours was left open to our houseyard, consequently when we looked out the window Saturday evening there were about 7 sheep happily chewing through our garden, & one cow grazing on the wild oats masquerading as lawn in our backyard.




Step two: Move animals back to paddock - this requires two people to move the sheep as hand raised animals are notoriously difficult to move. Now to move the cow - this is more complicated - you see at 7 months the cow is now much too large to man-handle as you would a sheep (ie. pick them us & half drag them back to paddock). Being handraised he is also not scared of you, so no amount of "ya, ya, yaing" is going to move the silly thing. So you have a stubborn bovine eating away & you have to use your imagination to try to find a way to move him. Hmmmm..




Step three: Come up with an idea ... AH HA - honey on bread. One good thing with a handraised animal is you do know their specific likes ( & dislikes mind you). In our case Whitey has a sweet tooth, so I put some honey on the bread & walked him back into the paddock. Easy hey!




Step four: This is not for the faint at heart. It takes extreeme amounts of stupidity & carelessness to complete this next feit! Allow the cow to lick your hands (because he is handraised, he loves to suck on your fingers - this is a comfort to him when he is young & missing his mother). Due to honey residue being on your hand allow him to really suck on them. Get distracted by talking to hubby. Don't notice how far into the back of his mouth your hand has strayed until you feel your finger being crushed between two molars. Congratulations, you have completed the task. You have now been successfully bitten by a cow!




Step five: Scream at the top of your lungs. This makes the cow run away....& later you wonder why you didn't just try this when you first attempted to move him back to the paddock. Depending where you were bitten, depends on the first aid required. In my case no bones were broken, so a trip to the hospital wasn't required. Stem the blood flow & take a couple of panadiene forte before the numbness wears off. This is a very effective way to get out of bathing the children for the night & cleaning up the dishes. It does however impede your typing skills for a few days.



NOTE: This is not recommended as part of the total country experience. There are many true country folk who have never been bitten by a cow.

22 comments:

Peta said...

Renata...you are hilarius..I grew up in the country on a farm and never got bitten by any animal big or small..LOL..

Anonymous said...

Aunty Sel is very proud of her country sister!!!!! I wonder how many people will follow your step by step procedure for getting bitten by a cow!!!!!!!
The more medical sisters thought you should have sought medical attention so as to ensure you don't get any infections...better keep an eye on it (as if you wouldn't!!!). Has Whitey recovered from the terrifying experience?????? Sure hope you're recovering!!!
Sent you an email with a link to a great song about the new US president 'There's no-one as Irish as Barack Obama' by an Irish group called 'Drew Hardy and the Nancy Boys' (thought you'd love the group's name, and the song is fantastic!!!!)Once you hear it, it's stuck in your brain!!!!
Lots of love to all

Anonymous said...

Poor Whitey, He wanted grass and got blood. Plase keep your fingers to yourself in future. I hope you both recover but if you neeed therapy I know where to go.
Love to all.
Wally

Anonymous said...

Hey Narn,
Brilliant going!!! If I never need farming tips I know who to go to...
Anyway, look after yourself, and all of the little sweeties. Today I should be studying, but mum got my head full of that song...
have a great day,
luv
sel

Anonymous said...

Renata...this was a very funny post, but I felt really guilty laughing, because I imagine that it hurt a lot!

Hope you're OK :)

Karin @ 6ByHisDesign said...

Oh my stars - you poor thing! Hopefully your typing will recover quickly ;)

And I have two heart kids.

Blessings,
~k

16 blessings'mom said...

Well, I was raised in a suburban neighborhood, and when I was a teen, I leaned on an electric fence to look at the pretty horses while out in the country with a friend....so I have learned the hard way about that....but a cow bite- were your kids suitably impressed? Funny, but I cannot imagine how much it probably hurt....

Mum-me said...

You have a gift for story-telling. I have to admit I laughed too, especially at the bit where you screamed and the cow ran away, and then you wondered why you just didn't do that in the first place.

And I always knew cows were scary. Not as scary as horses, but still scary.

P.S. How's your finger now?

junglemama said...

I'm sorry. I don't envy you--- but I will say that over the weekend my son was pecked by a chicken which probably comes close to this experience, wouldn't ya say?

Smilie girl said...

How is your hand feeling? You poor girl. Sometimes we learn things the hard way :>
My grandma was bitten by a billie goat on the arm. She got quite a nasty scar from it. He was a grumpy old thing and grandpa shot him because of it!!
Glad Whitey didn't meet the same fate.

Anonymous said...

Narn,
There are a few questions I feel deeply led to ask
1) was it as hilarious as the time you stuck the knife through your finger - I mean, if Boo and I were there, would we have laughed as hard as we did then????
2) Why is there not a photo of the finger on the blog????? I mean it is just as important in the whole getting bitten as the cow, and it is probably super exciting to look at.
Wish I could have been there (for no other reason then for a really good laugh and to play doctors)
Well done, I am proud of you lots!!!!
That is something that takes much skill (kind of like the knife in the finger incident)
Oh yeah - was it the same finger??????

Renata said...

Thanks Cor for the reminder about the knife in the finger incident. Yes you would have laughed - I was crying & laughing at the same time.(after I checked to make sure my finger was whole still). There is no photo of the finger, because I have a bandaid on it - the nail that is split about half way down came further off today - causing lots of bleeding. No I don't think it was the same finger as the knife incident.

Anonymous said...

Hey Narn,
He he, hilarious. The knife in the finger incident was probably the highlight of my life, so im very upset to have missed this. Poor Whitey is probably traumatised for life. PLEASE put a pic on!!! You just cant hold on to your nails can you??? Hopefully this one grows back better then your retarded big toenail...
Luv you lots,
BOO xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Mummy McTavish said...

Better watch him, he's got a taste for blood now... hope you feel better soon.

My grandad bragged about his Cow-jumping skills when he was around. I think I"ll blog that one...

jazzy cat said...

Ah that is indeed funny! Now I've read your step-by-step procedure, I figure with my clumsiness I too could get a proper 'feel' of the country.. all I need to get myself is a cow! (he looks so adorable too - biter or not);-)

Trixi said...

We have not gotten a cow, "yet", but when we do I think I will try to skip this country experience. I'm glad it wasn't too bad!!

debi9kids said...

Hope you don't mind that I am giggling away at your expense. LOL
But, you are a fantastic story teller :)
Hope your boo boo heals quickly. OUCH!

Unknown said...

Wow, I came from rural area where I live with different animal farm and fortunately i was not being bitten by cows or goats. We owned several pigs and etc.. Maybe I was used to it eversince I was a kid.

SF said...

Oh my goodness, how awful!! You poor thing! I can only imagine that would have hurt A LOT. I'm a bit timid of animals, and certainly would have screamed as well! I do hope your hand is feeling better now. Very funny post by the way, though I'm sure the actual experience wasn't at all funny!

Bobbie-Jo said...

Now this sounds like something done on purpose just to get a good blog post out of it! ;) Was it worth it?

Naw, maybe I'm the only one who does stuff like that!

How's it healing?

Queen to my 3 Boys said...

No way!

Haf Dozen Reasons....... said...

Ouch!! Hope it is healing well for you.

I have never been bitten by a cow but I have had my hands sucked on alot. Eeeewww kinda.

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