Make your day: Hug a cow

Photo courtesy of Arnaud Liegeois, Pixabay.

By Ron Schmidt

Daisy, Betsy and Buttercup are three cow friends I have known. In the past year many of us have missed the good feeling and warmth we get from giving and getting hugs from friends and family, as we have tried to keep each other safe from the coronavirus.

Still, I was surprised to hear on the morning news that more than a few folks are paying $75 an hour to hug a willing cow. Farms in several states have started the service for people who crave the pleasant feeling that comes from hugging a big, warm, friendly bovine. I would guess most radio listeners who tuned into the station on this morning were laughing and acknowledging the truth that a fool and his money are soon parted.

As a former owner of three pet Holstein dairy cows I hugged countless times, I know how good it feels. There’s nothing better on a minus 20-degree morning than to warm your face by pressing it into the side of a cow as you hand-milk eight gallons into a pail. That is what I did mornings before heading to work and again each evening after returning home from the chair factory in Hermansville, a small town west of Escanaba in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. Loud mooing let me know there was milking work to do before supper.

Daisy was my cow’s name. I raised her from a 3-day-old calf on my family’s dairy farm near Springport, Michigan. When she was nearly 2 years old my wife Bonnie and son Nate and I moved to a small farm in the Upper Peninsula, and we hired a young couple with a horse trailer to move Daisy. Nate was excited each morning to watch for the milkman, who picked up a full can of milk and left an empty one for the next two milkings.

Daisy weighed 1,500 pounds and was a very friendly cow, luckily. She was lonely and craved companionship. She managed to escape periodically and run to my neighbor’s farm to visit his small dairy herd. I always knew where to find her, though. Daisy was much happier when she had a calf of her own. Betsy was as friendly and lovable as her mom, and when she was 2-1/2 years old she had her first calf.

Eventually, we moved back to the Lower Peninsula, near Parma, only a few miles from my family’s dairy farm where Daisy was born. I raised dairy calves for my family’s large herd and fed them the milk I hand squeezed mornings and nights. We also sold milk by the gallon to neighbors who wanted fresh farm milk rather than the processed kind from grocery stores. By then we had a second child named Gretchen. Both she and Nate loved our cows’ milk, given to them at least twice daily as a treat with a homemade cookie or two.

One day my brother Karl asked me if I would milk another cow. He wanted a home for young Buttercup.  She joined Daisy and Betsy at our place. Buttercup was born blind, and no one knew why or even noticed it, because she was part of a big herd of young cows. She learned how to get around the pasture and the food troughs, but as she got older it was harder for her to get along in a large herd of pushy young cows. 

My brother asked me if I might like to keep her since she, Daisy and Betsy got along well together, and she would have a more gentle and happier life. I was glad to have her on the farm and after her first calf was born, I had three cows to milk by hand. After milking three cows mornings and nights, averaging 24 gallons per day, I developed even stronger hands. Daisy, Betsy and Buttercup were all very friendly and huggable.

Few people will ever have an opportunity to hug a cow. If you get a chance to do this with a friendly cow who likes hugs, you must try it. Take the time to enjoy the experience. It sure makes those of us who relish hugs and hugging feel great.

Children’s author Ron Schmidt enjoys long walks in the north woods with his Leader Dog Lila and listening to songbirds, owls and folk music.