The Ladies

[JohnC6]

This might seem an odd photo to post but during our holiday in Lampeter we would sit on the patio and watch them go back and forth along their field and what made us laugh was that it was always in single file. They are on their way from the field to the right to another section to the left and round a bend. They'd do this several times a day. It was therapeutic watching them as they trundled along, so casually. I could learn a lesson there We called them "The ladies" They are Red Polls (a cross of the Norfolk Red beef cattle and Suffolk Dun dairy cattle breeds... There were also four Welsh Blacks...native to Wales and they go back to pre-Roman times.

 

[sphexx]

I’m guessing single file is just because, constrained by the river/fence it’s most economical route round the bend?

 

[lindsay]

As herd animals, they like to follow a leader; so when needing to drive them, you find the one others will follow and work with that one. At least that is muy experience (not a farmer but partly grew up on a dairy farm, and have driven groups of escaped ones back to a field a couple of times off the road)

 

[AndrewFlannigan]

We called them "The ladies"

It's bad enough that they've been cut off before they reached their prime but you have to transgender them?

It's not surprising that the ones in the field near us look so miserable...

 

[JohnC6]

I’m guessing single file is just because, constrained by the river/fence it’s most economical route round the bend?

It's difficult for you to judge from this photo but if you look at my photo in Landscape/Rural you can see the layout much better. https://www.talkphotography.co.uk/threads/mid-wales.753227/

They would walk from that large field opposite my position and into the 75m wide(approx) strip of land going alongside the fence and carry on for about 100m and make a right turn for a short distance into the other field which you can see through the short gap in the low tree-line into the open field. Maybe they just prefer the fence line rather than out in the middle of the connecting strip of land. Having said that, from what Lindsay says, it's the line the first one takes that decides the route.

 

[JohnC6]

It's bad enough that they've been cut off before they reached their prime but you have to transgender them?

It's not surprising that the ones in the field near us look so miserable...

Are they bull calves, then ? They were a bit of a way off..

 

[sphexx]

Are they bull calves, then ? They were a bit of a way off..

I think they are pronoun-challenged beasts so according to the current fashion you should ask them how they prefer to described/addressed! Obviously not milkers since that would be obvious though at first from reading what you wrote I expected to see cows trudging back to be milked, as they do, usually with dominant one at the front.