Mad Cows, Part Two - They've Been Mad for (Mooing) Years, Absolutely Years

(And it's) "...very hard to explain why you're mad, even if you're not mad..."

Recent news reports of Mad Cow disease in the Pacific Northwest point to Canada and the incident where the disease was reported there back in May - as if we're not having enough troubles in our relationship with our Northern Neighbor™. Stupidangrycanajun rightfully asks how they/we know that it's just Canadian Cows® going mad?

Good question.

But I suppose I could understand why a cow would be mad. They get left outside in all kinds of weather, rain, sleet, snow - and in Canada? I don't recall many cows having those shaggy coats like buffalo, so as cold as it must get up there - who could blame them for being mad about the weather?

Then there's that milking business. I don't know what it's like to lactate, but in my brief experiences with lactating human females, it's as much a curse as it is a blessing. The blessing seems to be wholly related to nourishing one's young, but cows...

No wonder they're mad. Hell, even if the calves get weaned at a reasonable age, the dairy farmers go at 'em with machineries! They splash some nasty disinfectant all over their udders and hook 'em up to these electrified calf snoots and suck all the milk out of 'em every so often. Another thing I picked up about lactation is that it's a supply/demand deal - the more demand, the more they supply - a vicious circle of milk.

They've also got that delicate artificial insemination process - boy, I bet that's romantic. The cows probably get some indication that more mechanical indignities are imminent when they notice those electric teat milkers getting wheeled over to the bull runs. Next thing they know, all the bulls are laying in the shade, smoking Lucky Strikes™ and telling dirty goat jokes.

When Farmer Jacques saunters over and starts talking all sing-songy to ol' Bessie, I bet she's thinking "Yee-frik-kin-ha. Thirty seconds with a narrow, stainless steel probe. What a slutty cow am I." After that unsatisfying, yet humiliating experience, a certain amount of madness might be expected.

Branding. They must still engage in that sadistic practice. Mash a red-hot iron on your hip one time and see how mad you get. Maybe if they did that right before the narrow stainless-steel probe, some of the more eccentric cows might appreciate it.

And let us not forget that one-way vacation trip to the "stockyards." You'd think by now enough narrow escapes would've put the true story on the slaughterhouse into cattle lore. To this day they still line up and get slaughtered without putting up much effective resistance. Maybe they're just relieved that the never-ending boredom - cud chewing (yecch), making cow pies (yeccch), standing around in mud (yecccch), sexual repression (ye... oh, you get the point) - is about to be over.

Maybe they think they'll be reincarnated as something better, like a dog or a horse, or even a Majestik Møøse. I dunno, but I'd still be mad about it if it were me.

Comments

[CC]

You know, most of our problems can be traced back to Canada. Now we find out they're agitating cattle and sneaking them across the border. Who knows where we'd be if we had gone with their damnable metric system. Those bastards.

[Essay Canajun]

And the French! Let us not forget the French contingent, silly eng-el-ish pig-dog - oh, wait, never mind, resume normal comfortable living in your comfortable non-metric, anglophile ways ... bwahaha.

[Bruce]

That the French are evil should be understood by all. It's a given, like the sun rising in the east (thought the sun doesn't actually rise but stays almost stationary [with respect to the Earth anyway] whilst the Earth rotates upon its axis).