During recent heavy rains here, cows were seen in many different areas stacked up against fences, in this case mere barbed wire fences. They were also huddled together often 3 or 4 cows deep. What’s going on here. I doubt coincidence. How does standing next to a barbed wire fence give you any protection from the rain? Does huddling with a group of other cows give you any protection from the rain either?
Has anyone anywhere else seen this sort of behavior? If so, what’s the rationale for it? What are the cows thinking?
Weird! I’ve never noticed cows doing that–but during a rainstorm I’m usually keeping my eyes on the road & not checking out the cows, so perhaps I’ve missed it.
Our landlord has chickens and ducks I can watch from the kitchen window, and they do much the same thing, gathering themselves in a heap against the walls of their pens. I suppose the ones on the bottom stay drier, but I can’t imagine it feels good to have all your feathered friends smooshed on top of you.
Huh. I’ll have to walk out to where the pigs and goats are, during the next heavy rain, to see what they are doing.
(Well, barring lightning, hail, or tornadoes–we’ve had all of that this year.)
Cows are like capitalists, there’s a limit to how far ahead they look. The cows are just moving away from a bad stimulus, second by second, until the fence stops them.
Protection? A raindrop that hits one cow won’t hit another. They’re relatively waterproof and keeping warm by proximity. Sometimes you can see steam rising off a huddle of cows.