Update On The Red Poll Girls

The Red Poll girls have adapted well to this northern climate after their recent move from the relatively balmy state of Virgina:

I ran out of useable bedding hay in the loft and began putting a big, round bale of eating hay in the barn. The cows trample it down and poop on it. I clean the manure each morning and spread more clean hay over their sleeping area. Yet still they delight in eating their bedding:

They've begun butting heads at daybreak, out near the bale feeder. I don't know what that's all about yet. It might be play, it might be one of them in heat, it might be testing for dominance and a recalculation of the pecking order. They don't rear up and crash together like goats do, they simply press their heads together and push. I'll let you know if I figure out what's going on:

"Hey! Were you taking pictures of us?:

But most of the time, they're just a herd and do nearly everything together:

Sometimes I feel sorry for them, yet these girls get better treatment than most beef cows:

We had a very heavy snowstorm recently:

I walked out to the barn and slowly opened the sliding door. This is what I saw - five miserable, snow caked bovines, all huddled together at the door, wishing I'd let them inside:

I walked out to the bale feeder and fluffed up their hay, turning it over to expose some hay they could eat without first digging through the coating of snow. But they didn't care. They just stood there, looking forlorn:

So I let them inside the barn. Gracie had so much snow on her face that she almost looked like a Hereford:

And poor Amy had both snow and icicles. All the cows began munching on the indoor hay:

They'd won this battle by looking pitiful. I couldn't bear to see them huddled by the door in the snow. Oddly, the neighbors' horses voluntarily stay out in the snow and play in the very worst of weather. All the local beef herds stay outside. But my girls want a bit of comfort and I wanted to get them tame. I hope they appreciate my efforts: