A New Forest Cow Tale. A beautiful New Forest calf arrives.

Welcome to my New Forest Life Tales Issue #012 October 2012.

This tale is about contrast and how we deal with it. If you drive across the New Forest roads you will see animals all along the roadsides. Often munching happily within a few feet or sometimes inches, of passing cars.

We went on a fantastic, but hard and boggy walk last weekend, into quite a wild and isolated part of the New Forest and encountered New Forest ponies grazing contentedly under a canopy of little trees all surrounded by heather and heathland bog.

A totally timeless, bucolic scene where they were safe from traffic dangers.

As my animal accidents information shows you there are accidents to the New Forest animals all the time.

A friend told us recently that she had been involved in trying to rescue an injured cow she'd discovered by the roadside in a ditch.

The Agister was called and the cow was able to be put on its feet. As it didn't appear to be injured it wandered off. The next day a dead cow was found out on the New Forest. This is often what happens to the animals who encounter a vehicle or who just become sick. They will go off into a denser part of the forest to die. If it's a road accident they may be in pain.

So, a sad part of living here in this stunning National Park.

However, as we are dealing with nature here, there is often some compensation to balance the harshness of nature.

A heavily pregnant New Forest cow had recently been outside our cottage for a few days. One day when I was reading the paper in the garden I thought she would have it there and then, despite being just outside the fence. Luckily she held on for a few more days.

New Forest cows usually take themselves a little bit away from the herd to have their calves. After a day or so they all meet up again and usually the herd becomes a nursery.

When we saw this lovely little white calf she was in a woodland, with mum. They were next to a small herd of cows in a paddock. They were all curious about each other. As the young calves in the paddock were frolicking about, mounting each other and doing other daft antics the little calf got closer and closer.

Mum was not at all pleased. Although we were standing silently watching this go on she wasn't concerned about us, but decided she's warn the cows in the paddock to move away from the fence, which was only wire and looked like it would break, and move her little calf to safety.

As you can see it is a stunning little calf and we look out of the window every morning when we wake up to see if she has brought him up to play and graze outside our cottage.

Life couldn't be much better if you're an animal lover could it?

So although we heard that one cow met a sad end at least new life continues to go on. We are lucky enough to be part of it and can share this little ones journey through life as a New Forest calf and eventually bullock. Unlike domestic calves he will stay with his mother longer than usual as she will need to have him use her milk up. No one comes out with a bucket on the New Forest to get a pint of milk after all!

I hope you have enjoyed this insight into the contrast of life (and sadly death) in the New Forest National Park. All the New Forest cows are owned by Commoners.

Custom Search

I hope you've enjoyed this tale about living within the New Forest UK National Park I've been able to share with you.

Visit New Forest Life to find out more. You'll find lots more pictures and information about my life within the beautiful New Forest National Park.