Friday 13th July
The scientific community is buzzing at the moment with excitement. It has long been understood that the domestic farm cow is actually quite intelligent and far from the popular conception that all these animals do all day is stand around chewing the cud. Well of course, they do stand around chewing the cud, as this is part of the digestive process, but there may well be more going on than meets the eye. It has long been suspected that there is some form of cow language, or at least some form of communication rather than the occasional moo. Farmers have long observed that cows know when bad weather is on the way at least a couple of hours before it arrives, and it has often been observed that younger animals, who have never seen the cattle transporter, appear to know that the arrival of this vehicle, a true harbinger of their death, means not only their separation from the herd but their eventual demise too. More evidence has arisen recently when Daisy Brown, a seven year old milker suddenly ran dry. This is an infrequent but not unknown problem, and if it persists the farmer knows he will have no alternative but to send the unproductive cow to the pet food factory. It seems that Daisy was aware of this too, because she appears to have colluded with others to arrange her own demise rather than face the inevitable. Farmer Brown farms several acres of the Sussex Downs, right up to some very high cliffs. The day that he decided poor Daisy was no longer a viable proposition and he went to collect her he noticed that she was being protected by a solid ring of other cows who, seemingly in concert shielded her from his advance. Gradually the whole herd moved as one nearer and nearer to the edge of the cliffs, until poor Daisy was forced over the edge to her death. Officials from the EU are investigating as this would appear to be the first recorded case of assisted moo-icide.