Since one of my Honours colleague, Jane, travels to farm occasionally to collect data for her project, so I tagged along one day to meet with some adorable calves. I woke up early in a freezing 2 degrees Celsius winter morning, got my gumboots ready, and all set for another field trip to a cattle farm. It's about 2.5 hours drive to Gippsland, and this is how it looks like when you are driving in Gippsland. Very interesting. They said this was considered good visibility. Sometimes the mist can be so thick that all you can see is the front of your car.
Here we are! Say hello to the 18 months old calves! =D
After being forced to swallow a not-so-tasty medicine and feeling ticklish at the asshole at the same time, most calves tried to cough out that medicine once they were released. Just like dogs. Haha.
Jane's first attempt on drenching a smaller calve. It is not an easy task at all. Calves this size already have strength like a mini Incredible Hulk. So it's definitely a guy's job to do the drenching. But she still managed to drench a few tamer ones. Haha. Every calve has its own personality.
How they looked like after drenching.
After sitting, watching and recording data for the whole day, I finally gave it a go on the last few ones. Felt totally awkward to stick my cold fingers into the cow's anus for the first time. It's actually much better than what I've expected. I thought I would have to stuff my whole hand in. Lol! But what you do is just put your index and middle fingers in and tickle the spine. This will make its intestine to contract, and then the poo will come out for you to catch it. Sounds fun right! XD
At the end of the day, we herded the calves back to their paddock in a car. Didn't know you can herd the cows with a car. Lol. By the way, seeing calves galloping and chasing each other was so enjoyable. A city girl like me will always be fascinated by all these sights.
And they say "you are never a qualified parasitologist if you never stuck your hand into a cow's bump before". Well, you can't use that statement on me now. I've already passed it. Haha.
