Day in the Life of Delilah.
Hello, I’m Deliliah and I live here at Foxhollow. I have brown eyes, auburn hair, and I’m one year and three quarters old. I weigh about 980 lbs. I know...I’m a little on the smaller side for my age.
That’s me.
This farm is nearly 1300 acres big and I’ve seen most of it in my short life. You’d think seeing pastures of grass for days wouldn’t be that interesting, but for us cattle, it’s like an all-you-can eat smorgasbord every day.
Every morning, the Cattle Man brings around our mineral feeder buffet. It has 19 delicious minerals and we can choose whatever we want. It’s kind of like our morning vitamins, but tastier. Sometimes I go for salt for a treat, but my favorite is sulfur. Then, we feast on grass.
A lot of people don’t know this but— despite our large size, we are considered prey in the animal kingdom. So, we’re conditioned for survival to eat fast. First, we gorge ourselves on grasses. Then, you’ll see us move into a small herd cluster to chew our cud—which basically means chewing a second time. The herd cluster helps us watch each other’s back while we digest.
Most days, the Cattle Man move the fence line. We always get excited about that because it means we get to sample a new pasture. When the 4-wheel-fast-moving-people-moving-machine comes, most of us cattle line up at attention. We know that means the Cattle Man will make a new fence. When the fence moves, we feast! They grow lots of different types of grass here, and it’s all so tasty...fescue, blue grass, rye grass, clover...every pasture is a culinary tour of flavor and nutrition.
Cows are pretty curious by nature. It probably sounds strange, but one of our favorite places to graze is near the roadside. You’d think we’d be scared of the noisy person-mover-machines. But really, we loooooove watching the world go by. If you happen to walk by a pasture where we’re grazing, we’ll take a break and come to the fence to check you out. Just don’t make any sudden moooooves— that’s a little scary.
Sometimes other animals visit us, but we don’t mind. There are rabbits and coyotes hunting for mice. Sometimes deer join us at the grass buffet. There’s plenty for everyone, especially since we get to go to a new patch tomorrow.
You know another fun thing cows like to do? Play.
When we find a hill in our pasture, we play “King of the Mountain''— just like you hooomuns do. One of us climbs to the top to be ‘king’ until we get mooooved by another player. We also love to play with hay, just like hooomun children. When the Cattle Man brings hay bales in the tractor, we chase the bales across the field. It’s a little embarrassing to admit, but I have tried to stand on a round hay bale, too. I probably looked a little silly, but it was fun.
At night, we gather together in our herd and sleep under the stars. No barns, no thank you. This is our habitat and we love being out in it. Tomorrow we will start it all again!