OUR PROBLEM WAS WHAT TO DO WITH Lacey. She was from the first foal crop of our Appaloosa stallion High Noon, a Canadian national champion in working cow horse. She's been foaled in Alberta in the spring of 1998, and weaned at age 5 months. Now she was coming to our farm in Saskatchewan.

    The trouble was, our foals hadn't been weaned yet, so we had no logical place to put her. Our choices were: one, solitary confinement; two, out with the brood mare band, where she'd learn a hard life lesson about pecking order; or three. out with the cows. (We raise registered Black Angus.)

    Lacey had never seen a cow in her young life, so we thought, "Why not?" Crossing our fingers, we drove into the cattle yard and unloaded her right into the middle of the herd. Now, everyone has heard of "cow-y" horse-animals so programmed to work cattle, they practically train themselves. But Lacey was about to teach us a thing or two about pre-adolescent cow-horse mentality.

    It took her all of 5 minutes to realise that those big, black burpers were hers to command. She made a lickety-split pass around the field, calling for mom, but noticing all the while that the cows always gave her the right of way. Then she stopped, peered into the herd, and locked onto her toy.

    My husband Roger and I watched, mouths agape, while Lacey marched in beside that 1,400-pound cow and quietly, steadily, relentlessly pushed her out of the herd. By the time ol' Bessy realised what was happening, she was uncomfortably far from her friends.

    Bessy broke and ran. Lacey cut to the inside. Off they loped to the far side of the field, with Lacey calling the shots. Cows are dumb, but this one got the message pretty quick: Lacey's the boss. That established, Lacey called off the full-court press. She then wandered into the herd, dropped her head nonchalantly, and began nibbling grass. Roger and I blew our breaths out in a long "whew!" Okay, then, we thought. This might work after all.

    But I guess it depends on what you mean by "work". The next day, when we came back to check the herd, there was Lacey, nursing on a cow that looked as though she was in a trance.

    Over the next month, Lacey nursed at will and continued to command the herd. We never once saw her bite or kick a cow even when we "weaned" her a second time by putting her in with the nonlactating heifers. While she was in with the cows, though, she would sometimes stomp them with a front foot if they were lying down when she wanted to nurse. It was almost like she was tapping them on the back. They'd heave up, groaning, and stand there placidly while she sucked away.

    A curious point; The cows never licked her, as if she were one of their own. It was instead as though they were performing a duty for the headmistress.

    Lacey even held sway at the water bowl. Ordinarily, it works like this; The main boss cow moves in to drink, and all the others stand aside-or be bashed. But with Lacey around, it played out differently: Big, bad, old "10Z" ploughs her way up to the watering bowl, smashes a "wrong place, wrong time" calf into the wall, and drops her head to drink. Lacey moves right in beside her. For a long moment, the black bulldozer and the Appaloosa filly stare into one another's eyes. 10Z shakes her head menacingly. "Get lost, nag. This is cow country." Lacey stretches out her neck., then suddenly, meaningfully, cocks back one ear. 10Z has a instant change of heart. She does a Michael Jackson moonwalk at high speed, backing away from the bowl. Lacey then steps in daintily for a sip.

    We weighed them both after that. Lacey was 450 pounds; 10Z, 1,640.

    Through it all, the most delicious thing was the look on the neighbours' faces when Lacey bullied the herd, and especially when she nursed on the cows. "What kinda crossbreeding program do you guys run here?" asked one, scratching his head.

    We just laughed. We raise cow horses- yessir!"

 

Information source:  October 1999 issue of Horse & Rider Magazine