Under the Wire

Regular “Under The Wire” readers know I often compare human and bovine intelligence with the latter consistently coming out the winner.

Today’s column once again points out how far ahead cows are over us humans.

When Covid broke out over a year ago, many cattle owners pointed out a popular cattle vaccine protected bossy and her baby with “Bovine Rotavirus-Coronavirus” vaccine. The cow didn’t have to do anything to get the shot, just walk down the alley to the chute, leave a minute later, then rely on her natural cow body to react accordingly, granting immunity to both generations. Pretty smart, huh?

Oddly, what that cow did has become a very intensely debated human question. Vaccinate or not? The cow had no choice but something in her makeup told her to trust us humans. We would take care of her. She and her calf are here today perhaps because of it.

Vaccinations in cattle are not a new concept. In fact when most of us cattle owners sell our calves at the sale barn in the fall, we fill out a form the barn provides listing all the vaccinations they have received. Buyers react by paying more for calves with more shots.

The ultimate vaccine protocol is two rounds of some vaccines. One round is given to the calves 30 days before weaning. This braces them for the stress of no longer getting their mother’s milk upon ‘graduation’ to upcoming adulthood. A second round is administered ‘graduation day’ as a booster for the previous shots. The process is called “Pre-condition.” Buyers pay more for these calves knowing they have a better chance of weaning healthy over the next few weeks of stress. We sellers receive more money per calf and are happy knowing the buyer just might buy them again next year.

As humans who respect what we have learned from cows, Sue and I chose to be “pre-conditioned.”

Our friends tend to be split 50/50 on the issue. We respect every single person’s right to make such a choice. This is not an attempt to influence or take sides with anyone on any topic.

The only pressure we feel is from our cows. Heck, if they trust us to do the right thing for them and their babies, how could we not do the same thing ourselves. They know we watch how they live and act.

For us, it’s just “another thing learned from a cow.”