Category Archives: Cattle behavior

Unusual Cow Behavior: The Sneaky Calf Phenomenon

allosuckling in cattle, Cattle behavior, Sneaky calves, Uncategorized April 30, 2026 Comments: 2

While exciting events have occurred at times at Medicine Spirit Ranch such as bull fights, marauding feral hogs, and flash floods, but never before have we experienced frank thievery. And bovine sneak thievery at that!

Not long ago I posted a blog piece describing five black baldy cows who had calves by their side purchased to restock our cattle herd. The calves were the product of black baldy cows and apparently black baldy bulls or Angus bulls. While small, the calves appeared healthy and who would have suspected skullduggery from any of them.

Black baldy calves mixed in with our smoky calves (crosses between black baldy mothers and Charolois bull)

One calf stood out from the rest because she was brown rather than black and had no white patch on her face as is typical for a black baldy. I dismissed these coloration differences because the calf appeared healthy and had a good mama. Who would have thought the behavior of the calf in addition to its appearance would differ from the usual?

The little brown milk thief. And he looks so innocent!

For readers unfamiliar with cow behavior, to see a calf suckling on a cow other than its mother cow is unusual. This is especially so for non-milk cows. When seen, this behavior is referred to as allosuckling. An underweight calf might attempt to suckle an unrelated cow, but typically will promptly be shaken off by the seemingly offended lactating cow. While on rare occasion a non-mother cow will suckle an orphan calf, in my experience this behavior is unusual, and I’ve never seen this behavior for a normally developing calf with an accepting and nurturing mother. We have in the past needed to bottle feed calves whose mothers did not produce sufficient milk, were ill, or died.

The milk theft I witnessed has now become a recurring crime, confirming my suspicions of outright calf sneak thievery. Both occasions transpired while I was in the process of feeding range cubes, informally called “cow candy”. While the mama cows hurried forward to enjoy their protein feed, the little brown calf, eyeing her opportunity and with nefarious intent and gleam in her eye, sneaked between the hind legs of a cow who was not her mother. There she attached herself to a teat. Presumably, the cow in question was sufficiently distracted to not check the identity of the alien calf.

After witnessing this unusual cow behavior for the first time, I wondered if the calf had been abandoned or was failing to obtain sufficient milk from her mother. However, this seemed not to be the case., as the calf was observed to feed normally from her mother. My further enlightenment occurred about a week later when I saw the sneak thief latch onto yet another mother while again feeding range cubes. A quick inspection of the little brown sneak thief found her to be both healthy appearing and not starved for milk.

Who me, steal milk?

Even stranger was the sneak thief’s selection of which cows to suckle. One would expect the calf to select one of the well bonded cows in the purchased herd from which he came. Instead, the alien calf on both occasions selected a cow from our original and unrelated herd. Admittedly, cows from our original herd are experienced and gentle mothers, perhaps helping to explain their tolerance for the interloping, little milk thief.

And as Yogi Berra has been quoted as saying, “You can observe a lot just by watching.”

Integrating Cattle: Lessons in Herd Dynamics

Assimilation, Cattle behavior, Integration of Outside Cattle into the Herd, What Cattle Can Teach About Assimilation March 31, 2026 Comments: 2

A cattle trailer opened its back gate last week at our ranch and out bounded five recently purchased black baldy cows and their calves. The animals proved docile but stuck closely together. The next day I opened the gate to the adjoining pasture where our resident herd grazed. The immigrant cattle slowly were drawn into the adjoining pasture. I observed the wary interaction of the new cattle and the established larger herd of black baldy cattle and their smokey calves (cross between black baldy and Charolais). The intermingling of the new and old herds then took its familiar course that I’ve witnessed from numerous episodes of introducing new cattle to the resident herd.

A new black baldy mother with three of the new calves

Several of the cows from the older herd approached the immigrants with a certain intent. Before long several minor altercations broke out between members of the older herd and the newer one with head to head pushing taking place. Even several of the immigrant calves became challenged to shoving matches by calves from the established herd. The smaller new cows were first time mothers and were over matched by the larger resident black baldy mothers. Likewise the calves from the resident herd were on the whole larger than the immigrant calves.

Foreheads pitted against foreheads, the pairs pushed and strained. Muscles bulged in their necks and hind quarters, eyes stared balefully. Eventually some slight movement began to occur with a dominant bovine shoving the other several paces backward. It seemed that no intent existed to harm the other cow (calf) but rather to demonstrate dominance. A new order of dominance was being developed.

For the majority of the cattle from the established herd (lets call them the citizen herd), avoidance seemed the order of the day. The separation of the lesser and newer herd from the older, larger herd developed over the next several days. The immigrants as a group initially wandered away into a nearby pasture, avoiding members of the older citizen herd. There they seemed content, languidly munching on green grass or chewing their cuds and maintaining close proximity with the members of their small herd. No doubt previously established dominance within this group continued unchanged.

On day four the larger herd wandered into the pasture occupied by the immigrants. No more shoving matches occurred and instead the cattle ever so slowly and tempted by nearby green grass began to intermingle. The immigrants still herded together but maintained position on the periphery of the citizen herd. Tolerance was being developed.

A smokey calf intermingling with the older citizen cows

As the saying goes all behavior has meaning, but the question arose as to what meant the behavior of these bovines. Did the new herd represent a potential threat to the established herd? Did their positions of dominance within the herd feel threatened. Did competition for grass bring about the shoving matches? Did the citizen cows sense competition or fear that their usual circumstances or prerogatives might be affected?

Whereas the cows were all black baldys and looked much alike, major physical differences did not divide them. Their vocalizations also sounded very similar to this observer; however, clearly calves could differentiate their mother’s call from that of the other cows. Might the immigrant cows have a different vocalization (dialect) that was perceivable from the citizen cows? Was competition for available grass (jobs) the source of concern- the greater number of cows with the same amount of grass?

A week has passed and now the cattle have intermittently integrated without signs of disagreement or competition. While still identifying with their original herd, the negative behaviors appear to have stopped. Based on prior experience integrating cattle into the resident herd, I expect no further shoving matches. And if the combined herd follows true to form, before long the cattle will pay little attention to which herd they derived. If only people could adapt to immigrants as quickly, as it appears to take years and even generations for this assimilation to occur in our society.

Intermingling of the mothers from both herds and a smokey calf with several of the black baldy calves

Admittedly, people have far more complex social behaviors than cows. But are there not similarities? Don’t citizens feel threatened that jobs or societal expectations might change with an influx of different folks with different customs, dialects or languages? Is that really different from the behavior shown by my cattle when confronted with immigrant cattle? Might the uncertainty of place in society or herd be threatened by newcomers? The immigrants may possess skills greater than the residents and therefore ascend in dominance (wealth) in society or within the herd.

Perhaps, just perhaps, cows can teach us something about assimilating faster with immigrants.