Cow Chips: Follow the Leader

One of the observations I made of the cows was that they like to follow the leader. I do not think that they do this the way sheep do, however, I have noticed that if one cow goes in a certain direction, there will generally be more that follow. My earlier story about the strays leading off our herd at Panguitch is an example of this. This follow the leader tendency is most apparent when you are trying to move the cows from one place to the other.

Most of the time when we are moving the cows there are enough older cows that know what we are doing that they are able to lead the others in the right direction. I have always considered the cows to be incredibly stupid, however, I do have to give them credit, they do remember places and as we move them from one range to the other they seem to know where to go. This would work out really nice if we did not always have one or two that may know where we want them to go that refuse to go there. These rebellious cows can lead an entire herd of cows in the wrong direction. When the cows are agitated they will be more prone to follow the leader, unfortunately the leader will inevitably be one of the cows that does not want to told what to do.

Dealing with this dilemma takes some effort. The remedy is to play the tendency to follow the leader against them. The way to do this is to allow the rebellious uncooperative cows to hang back in the herd, and then force the more cooperative cows to lead. This does not always work, but for the most part it is an effective way to manipulate the cows into doing what you want.