COW: mothering instinct puts our own crying baby in peril

DANGEROUS and unpredictable - not normally how you would describe that placid beast, the cow, but this was the picture painted after they were involved in two undeniably savage attacks.

In separate incidents weeks apart, one man was trampled to death and another left badly injured.

You rather expect such violence from bulls - but cows ?

On each occasion - and here's the rub - the cows were accompanied by calves.

Despite the tragedy of one man's death, I find it oddly comforting that centuries of domesticating cattle have failed to remove that implacable force...maternal instinct.

As a child I used to walk to primary school through fields full of cows in the summer months and never experienced a problem.

But as an adult I have had the odd tricky moment with them, none worse than when my daughter was a baby.

Back then, a country walk briefly degenerated into turmoil and a little 'paternal instinct' came into play.

It all happened during an ill-advised ramble across unfamiliar countryside with my wife, our baby daughter, and two other adults.

Even a tiny tot gets heavy after a while and myself and my wife were soon lagging behind, cursing our decision to put our crying baby through this pointless ordeal.

Climbing over a stile, we suddenly found ourselves surrounded by a large herd of Friesian cows, some with calves.

Startled and agitated by our daughter's cries, they moved in on us, lowering their heads and stamping aggressively.

By now, any escape route was cut off and we had no option but to press on through them, me holding our screaming daughter tight, trying not to imagine what might happen if she was knocked from my grasp.

I shouted and lashed out with my boots to clear a path and, thankfully, the cows gave way.

But I was pretty relieved when we made it out of the field.

It was an object lesson in how everyday circumstances can suddenly conspire against you.

Cows are fascinating animals and not just because they can be so physically imposing.

Black and white Friesian cows originate from Denmark, though they are actually named after a Dutch region where they brought prosperity.

They give the highest UK milk yield at about 1,200 gallons following each calving.

That's a lot of milk.

The light brown Jersey cow, probably the prettiest with its doe-like eyes, came here from the Channel Islands.

However, its ancestry is thought to be rooted in Asia and the breed's unusual tolerance of hot conditions is believed to be a throwback to those days.

Hereford cows are another common breed, known for their white faces and big reddish-brown frames.

As a journalist, I once covered a court case involving a Hereford bull which attacked a group of lady ramblers after it was illegally allowed to roam.

Bizarrely, in his defence, the farmer claimed it was not a bull which attacked them but a cow with a hormone problem.

One by one, the lady ramblers took the witness stand to describe their ordeal and each was asked to describe the (ahem) equipment of the animal that chased them.

Some used the politest euphemisms they could muster.

All were eventually forced to concur with the prosecuting solicitor's more prosaic words, if only to establish legal clarity.

One woman even described a "large, hanging gentile" - which sounded like a religious slur on the poor animal.

Another court case involving cows springs to mind, one covered by a former colleague elsewhere.

Police staked out a field at night after a farmer complained his cows were being repeatedly disturbed.

When officers pounced, they found a young farm labourer - naked apart from Wellington boots - squatting on a bail of straw behind a snoozing cow. He claimed to be sleepwalking.