A couple of months ago, I came home from work one morning to the news that we had a new cow.

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“She’s at the top of the race” Richard told me. I looked out the window and sure enough, there was a cow that was definitely Not Our Cow. Richard had moved our herd into a new paddock, and this spare cow had popped out of the bush to meet them.

With the help of a neighbour, Richard ended up pushing her through the fence and in with our wee herd. They’d figured she’d just keep walking about munching our trees, and potentially damaging our fences if we didn’t contain her.

Not even the first time

Roaming animals are not uncommon in the country. I’ve written about cows we’ve picked up more than once.

But while we had an idea of which direction she had come from, we had no idea how to get in touch with the most-likely owners. The property had changed hands since the last time we’d had this problem.

So I printed some flyers and popped them into the mailboxes at the next-driveway-along, and waited.

We move our cows to a new paddock every week. As the weeks dragged on, each time we moved Spare Cow without hearing anything, we wondered what the heck we were gonna do about her.

Options

On one hand, she had a NAIT tag, and we could probably use that to figure out who owns her.

But that requires a scanner, which we don’t have (or have any other need for) and which cost about $1,000 to buy. Without that, we could potentially make an appointment with OSPRI who administer the NAIT scheme to come read her and make contact.

That would mean separating her from the herd and moving her up to the yards—a 1km journey up hill that kind of needs to be walked to move cattle safely, and two people to pull off.

We’d have to clear our schedules for it. Neighbours need notifying that we’re closing their gates. And if her owner didn’t pick her up quick-smart, we might have to take her back to the paddock for water before doing it all over again for transport.

And honestly? That is a lot of work for a problem which we didn’t make or ask for. The potential emotional (and actual) labour made me want to cry. So we just kept moving her around our paddocks.

On the other hand, beef is expensive. Whether you’re buying it in the supermarket or the stockyards, cows are worth really good money.

A freezer-ready cow showing up on your door definitely presents the temptation of putting her in said freezer. This is also why we couldn’t just put her up on a local Facebook page—there are absolutely less-than-scrupulous people out there that would falsely claim ownership of the cow to fill their own freezer.

But we don’t currently own a freezer big enough to fit this cow, or really even a space to put that freezer. We’d maybe need to find a slightly-dodgy butcher to pull it off. Another set of emotional labour, if I’m honest.

In the end, fate intervened when a local farmer gave his opinion.

“I think she’s pregnant”

I’d thought she was rather round, and that maybe she’d need drenching or something, so we’d asked for a second opinion from someone who knew more about cows. And the second opinion was that there was probably a second cow.

There was absolutely no way I was going to send a pregnant cow to the butcher. Long-term readers know I have realistic-but-romantic ideas about house cows. And a calf is a free cow! She was friendly-ish, maybe I could milk her. We could let them be together until the calf was weaned and then put her in a freezer.

Sure, it was going to be a lot of new experiences to manage, and so many things could go wrong, but heck. I was intrigued.

So we put the freezer idea on ice and waited. As the weeks progressed, she got rounder, and by the time this story ends we were quite positive she was—indeed—pregnant.

The pop-in

After more than two months of this, a neighbour living on the accessible-side of the locked gate on our subdivision messaged to let us know a guy had been asking around about a black cow with a white face.

That was a moment where we had to look into our hearts and make a choice.

Before she was claimed, we didn’t know who she belonged to. We could tell ourselves any number of stories about where she came from and why she was staying with us.

After she was claimed, the equation changed.

Hypothetically, say we lied and told him we didn’t have the cow. That she went back into the bush and we haven’t seen her again.

We change her NAIT tag, and get our free calf (and because this is a fantasy, the birth went well and it’s a female heifer). The cow liked me enough to give us some milk which I processed into cheese and butter. Then we put her in a freezer.

On a spiritual level, I would be eating that deception. Every time I BBQ’d one of those prime steaks or made a mac’n’çheese, I would hear “cow thief” inside my head. And she was a big girl so, I’d be hearing and imbibing that for quite a long time.

Perhaps others wouldn’t feel it, but for me, making a lie like that part of my body by eating it felt… like a really terrible idea.

And just selfishly, I’d also never be able to talk about any of it. About where the meat came from; birthing a calf; milking; and processing my own dairy products.

You might have noticed you are reading this on an entire website filled with hundreds of posts about my rural life. It’s safe to say that if I am going to do any of that, then I really want to write about it!!

Karma also has a habit of kicking my ass. “Do un to others as you would have them do un to you” is some killer life-advice. The idea of losing one of our herd to somebody else’s freezer didn’t feel nice. I didn’t want that level of deception to kick back at me some place unexpectedly.

Realistically, we’re also simply not ready for a pregnant cow, milking her, processing all that milk, and then storing a home kill beast. All of that requires investment and consideration that I have already decided I don’t want to do right now.

Finally, the owner of the cow is a member of our rural community, and she was worth a few grand. I don’t know who he knows.

Reputationally, I’d rather be known as the woman who gave the cow back all safe and fed; than the lady who denied responsibility and ate it. I’ve heard stories about members of our community who have (allegedly) done that, who I’ve never even met!

Not today, Satan

The little devil on my shoulder lost the argument by a wide margin. I took the number from our neighbour and rang the guy for a chat.

His story made sense. He described her accurately, including her temperament. Just like we were pretty sure we knew where she came from, he was pretty sure where she went. Ultimately giving her back was a giant set of problems, sorted.

So we rounded her up out of the paddock and separated her from the rest of the herd. An easier thing to write in a sentence than to actually do in the late-spring, late-afternoon sun. But our cows ended up helping boot her out by blocking access to the wider paddock and pushing her to the gate. That amused us.

I took the job of walking her up to the stockyards; while Richard closed and opened the right combination of gates, erected temp-fences, and notified the neighbours.

The cow and I made quite a pair. As we began the 1km walk up the hill together, I told her “you’re fat, pregnant and slow. I’m just fat and slow. We can do this.” Our speeds were well-matched and we made it safely without incident.

Her owner came with a trailer and picked her up, leaving us with a box of Roses chocolates. I consoled myself with the fact that this entire saga would at least make a good blog. We’ve also got that neighbour’s number now, which is always a handy thing to have.

We might not get rich (or fed) being nice. Maybe it makes us weak in the eyes of some. But at least I know we made the right decision. And maybe we earned some good karma points in the process.

You never really know how a story like this will end up. After all, the last time this happened, we ended up with a new dog.