Cow Chips: Trails

One of the interesting things that happened after the cows in the Ivins field figured out the water situation was that trails appeared in the field. The half of the field nearest the water tank was fallow and had been disked before the cows were brought in. The other half of the field had Sudan Grass planted in it. After the cows had been in the field for a couple of weeks I noticed that they had made trails throughout the field. None of the trails formed any semblance of a straight line, all of them seemed to meander wherever and all over. Eventually they all lead to the water tank by the west fence. If you were to look at the field from an aerial point of view the trails would have looked like a broken glass type pattern.

I am not sure why the cows follow these trails; they would have cut out a lot of walking if they would walk in a straight line. I also am not sure how they started making the trails. My guess is that a cow would meander through the field grazing here or there, and knowing cows I am sure that there would be other cows that would have to follow to see what they were missing out on. After several cows had walked along in the same path it became visible enough that more cows would follow it. The cows would follow a path until it intersected with another path that was going more in the direction that the cow wanted to go. It would then follow that path until it intersected the next path and so on. All of the paths eventually lead to the outside fence or the water tank. There was one big path along the perimeter fence; I believe that each cow made this loop at least once daily. They have a tendency to do what they have done and what everyone else is doing. I have those same tenancies sometimes. There are times when it is just easier to follow the path than it is to make a new one. I wonder how much “wandering” I could have eliminated in my life if I would have just figured out my own path instead of following the one laid out in front of me.