If one of our cows was freshening or had mastitis (there was always at least one) we gave its milk to the barn cats. An average of fifteen cats, with gusts up toward fifty, pushed each other to crowd around the pan of warm milk. Dad also provided a giant bag of Purina dog food to supplement their mouse catching.
Cows think it’s funny to kick over milk cans or create a lump on your shin bone. One cow set her sights on a barn cat and kicked him in the head. The cat lived, but his head tilted to one side, like he was looking at an invisible object at ten o’clock high. We immediately named him Screw-head. He walked fine, but his running wasn’t so good. He ran in circles.
I christened one of our barn cats Sonny Bono, after the male half of a newly popular duo called Sonny and Cher. He was almost pure white with a tiny bit of gray on his head. His sole occupation was licking himself as clean as possible, nonstop.
Cows have extremely soft poop. When a cow gets diarrhea it is not pretty.
One morning, Sonny sat on the walkway behind a cow with diarrhea. The cow coughed, and her last meal shot out like water from a fireman’s hose.
A shit pyramid sat in the spot where moments ago Sonny had been. Two eyes blinked open in the tar-baby mound. Sonny sat in shock for a moment, then took off like a brown lightening streak. Sonny Bono never resumed his cleaning fetish.
Our milking parlor was shaped like a T with the top of the T about two feet higher than the stem. The milk house was above the T, to the left of the stem intersection.
In the early spring I carried my two half-pails of milk up a ramp from the lower section to the upper, heading toward the milk house. Instead of walking three extra steps to a ramp over the manure trough, I cut the corner and stepped across.
My foot slid on a splattering of slippery poop that plopped short of the trough. I landed with my entire backside stretched out in the sloppy trough and a coating of warm milk splashed down my front.

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Cows would be lined up on each side with big fat butts facing the trough.
A lovely milk maid and her temperament are not so lovely when coated in cow poop.
“Hey Mary, are you trying to make chocolate milk?” asked David.
“Quit lying down on the job,” said Dad. “And look at all the milk you spilled.”
Dad and David kept laughing as I stormed up to the house, looking like Sonny Bono. I refused to go to school that day.
My fellow barn workers didn’t laugh long because it marked my last morning carrying milk before school. I continued cleaning the milk house on weekends for another couple of months. Dad said the floor and equipment were never so clean. I’m sure he was right.
Lesson learned: Never mock a milk maid.
Related posts: Chapter Twelve: Milk Maid; Chapter Eleven: Mad Cow Hero
Now it’s your turn: Let’s hear your cow mischief story!
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Another gem – sadly I not (being a city lad originally) a tale to tell. Great post.
Thanks Mike. I’m sure you got to step in dog poop instead.
Good one “milk maid”. I’ve had cow crap all over me so many times over the years you kind of get use to it. To many, it’s better than the fluids and after birth after pulling a calf. Funny story. 😀
Levi, I think cow poop has some sort of magnetic pull!
It does. Yummy!! Lol.
Ha, ha, I do indeed have a cow poop story. I was a young teacher from the city, my first year of teaching in the country. I lived on a dairy farm and late one Saturday night, on my way home from a party, I was dropped at the farm gate. You can guess what I encountered on that dark moonless night as I walked up the farm driveway.
Val, then you found out that cow pies are bigger than a wedding cake and not as sweet!
Love it. We are actually going out to a dairy today. The local robotic dairy is having an open day. 🙂
Suz, what a great idea. I needed a robotic milk maid!
It was amazing to see. The cows go into these enclosures when they are ready and the doors close on them and milking begins. Then they just wander out and start feeding again. This guy has a processing plant attached to the milking shed so the milk goes straight through to there.
Suz, our farm was definitely not robotic. We had to hand carry the milk in buckets and dump it in the bulk tank. Now they have tubes that pump the milk right to the tank.
I’m afraid I’m a bit short on material for this one, too. Plenty of hearsay but no personal experience apart from the odd misplaced foot. On the hearsay side I was told by a friend of mine how the relationship with his first girlfriend ended – walking home along one of our local lanes from a night out he persuaded her to slip behind the hedge with him for, shall we say, a little private time? You can guess what they lay down in. Apparently, it was extremely fresh.
Fred, a little known fact is that cow pies have legs. They silently move to wherever you plan to be.
I think the moral is ‘look before you put’. But in total darkness – hey, how come James Bond never puts his foot in it? Or Bourne, or Wolverine?
Although I’ve never landed in the stuff, I’ve been close enough to it to wish I had a clothes pin. I don’t blame you for quiting the milking routine.
Glynis, cow poop smells bad during the best of times. But when they eat grass silage the stench is utterly (udderly) rancid!
I am just trying to imagine this poor cat covered in cow poop… not to mention you lying in it… No cow stories here… but I could tell a few about sea gull poop… – never mind. 😉
Choosing, my Daddy-O still laughs at the picture of Sonny. Everyone knows not to laugh at the memory of me in the poop.
Sea gull poop is horrible, with a rotten fish smell. My brother got his with it on a fishing trip.
Going to save this to show a friend of mine who owns a large dairy here in town. Lol!
Thanks, CJ. Dairy farms have changed a tad since the 60s. But there are still milk maids out there.
I like you, Skinny, but I have to sue you. Your posts give me a stumik cramp. At my age it ain’t nice. Look out for a large legal envelope within the next few days. 😀
Thanks, Spunky. I love getting mail that isn’t a bill!
[…] Related posts: Chapter Thirteen: Working Jello Girl; Chapter Twelve: Cow Poop, Barn Cats, and a Milk Maid […]
What a wonderfully funny post and what memories it inspired. My family, too, had cows and gave them names as colorful and descriptive as those you gave your cats: Bray’s Bonny Best Bucilla and Oh So Sweet Alice are good examples. We children, having no horse, rode cows. Our favorite mount was Bucilla, because Sweet Alice didn’t live up to her name.
Thanks, Beulah. Dad gave all our cows names, too. Everyone of his and Mom’s female friends had a cow named after them.
I tried riding a heifer once, it didn’t work out. I landed in a pile of fresh manure.