I love the idea of taunting a mammal that outweighs you 5:1 with "come at me, bro".

Good times.

I loved that, too.

When I was about 10 or so my family visited my uncle's farm, and a cow chomped down and wouldn't let go of my elbow. My uncle had to punch it between the eyes to get it to let me go.

I used to get beat up my grandfathers rooster.

Roosters man, those are so mean scary motherfuckers.

Heh. That's what happens when you let city slickers out into the country. Critters have their own code of behaviour.

Cattle are actually pretty grumpy animals, especially the bulls. I am reminded of a time when my husbands grandfather was trying to round up his herd, and the bull wasn't having any of it. So, he chased grandpa into the tractor. Grandpa had to fire a sledgehammer at it so he could get out of the cab....

I raise cows one or two at a time for my own food.

I buy the males off of local dairies. If your going to stand up to a 1500 lb animal the trick is to make it think you are the alpha long before they ever reach that size.

By the time my cows were too large to handle physically, which happens faster than you think, they had already been conditioned to the fact that they would lose if they challanged me.

By the time they were fully grown if one squared off on me in challange I could cow it(pun intended) with nothing more than advancing on it quickly and imitating the sound of an electric cattle prod.

These guys were pansies, the cow was just playing

Totally with you on the mufukin'Roosters, Ppen. I hate them beady-eyed reptiles.

BTW, if you ever find yourself in this position - LAY DOWN. If you run, they are going to chase. If you lay down on the ground you cease to be a threat and become a curiousity within a few minutes. You might get licked and snuffled on,but not stomped.
Temple Grandin describes illegal employees using this fact of cow nature to hide when the feedlots are raided.

"I love the idea of taunting a mammal that outweighs you 5:1 with 'come at me, bro.'"

Not sure if that was a cow, bull, or steer leading the charge, and I doubt if hapless Nathan Bverbeez was either, but he managed to be funnier than he meant to be. And I think the cattle were laughing at him at the end of the video.

I remember sneaking through the sheepfold at my Granddad's ranch, trying to fill the feeding troughs without the sheep, who were out to pasture, noticing me. Sheep are reasonably harmless, and unreasonably stupid, but the sight of 3,000 (okay, 50, maybe) of the bastards running full speed toward the fold was enough to unnerve a teenage boy.

The cow is not your 'bro'. The cow is your sandwich. You do not back down nor befriend your sandwich with soft talk.

WTF, people, you're the top of the food chain. Act like it!

hmmm, dunno what wizardry this is, but children the world over heard cows a 7 or so, with out that much issue. I was 10 when I started helping my best friend out, now and then, with his dad's herd of angus. They were pretty placid, though one took a dislike to me... so my friend just told me smack the cow in the head with my walking stick. Sure enough, she wanted nothing to do with me after that. So much so, that I could get her going away from me, and get the herd to follow...

Dunno, bulls can be another deal, tho. Funny.

Ppen: "Roosters man, those are so mean scary motherfuckers."

When I was about 5 my grandmother had a bunch of chickens, including a rooster that was mean as hell. One day my aunt, who was about 12, was showing me some baby chickens when that rooster suddenly came flying out of nowhere and jumped her and scratched her all up. She went running in the house crying, and 10 seconds later came charging back out with an old tennis racket and beat that stupid bird about half to death. I so admired her for that - and still do more than 50 years later.

Swans and geese are mean too. Read the Modern Love essay from two weeks ago in the NY Times. Frightening stuff.

I was rooting for the cows.

Somewhere I have a lovely video of me and a bunch of Civil War reenactor buddies being charged by a small bunch of cattle we disturbed while firing blanks in the woods one day. Fortunately someone had a camera. They look all nice and sweet and Elsie, but the damn things are as big as a Volkswagen and they move *fast.* I got behind a tree and prayed I wouldn't have to bayonet one.