A Bit More About Cows

July 29, 2024

Fascinating creatures – cows! I know just seeing them doing not a lot in fields may not be rivetting stuff but haven’t you ever, for instance, idly wondered how it is that they all manage to point in much the same direction when they are eating and why that might be? I mentioned this the other day to Grant, who sells his produce in our local London market. I was astonished when he said he had never noticed this phenonomon – how is that not possible – he’s a beef farmer for god’s sake! Now we are back in France so I’ll have to wait until we return to the UK before I find out if he has checked them out.

Okay – I know – you are looking at this pic and said, ‘But there’s one facing the other way!’ and that’s true but rare. It just happens to be the only ‘herd of cows’ pic I have available for the moment, as right now I’m surrounded by acres of vines and very few cows but if you want proof, just go and find a field full of them and you’ll see what I mean.

On a more serious note – I, in my ignorance, had always imagined that female cows were bred for their milk and male cows for their meat. I’d never thought too much about it until I noticed statements such as ‘Pasture fed meat’ and ‘Beef raised on grass’ about the product on sale; it made me wonder what that meant. I asked Grant and he went a bit coy at first. He told me, ‘Some cows never go outside and they are fed only on silage. To have good meat or milk, you have to have animals specifically bred for the purpose and they need to live in fields and eat only grass or hay.’ I said, ‘But do dairy cows ever get slaughtered for their meat?’ and he became even less forthcoming on the subject and muttered that it was all a bit of a ‘mine-field’. Well, he was busy serving his customers so that was the end of the conversation. I was left wondering if a lot of cheaper beef might come from poor old cows, fed on silage and kept indoors. Apparently, if you shove them outside for a few weeks before they are sent to the knacker’s yard they can then be advertised as ‘pasture-fed’ etc. I aim to find out more on the subject and will let you know what I discover. In the meantime, I’m going to continue to buy Grant’s lovingly raised beef. I think I can taste their happy outdoor life and natural existence in the meat that I cook.

I have a lovely little book called ‘The Secret Life of Cows’ but the author has nothing to say on this subject nor, incidentally, is there anything in there about the grazing habits of cows out in the field. I don’t know what thoughts you might have about this one-way eating pattern but I think, with heads down, it’s the most efficient way of grazing without bumping into each other!