Meet Mowgli

Mowgli, the black and white cow.

Rachael rescued the trio from a dairy — the unweaned progeny of milk cows are usually slaughtered for veal. “It was bittersweet going to get them,” she recalls with a shudder. “Their mums were at the fence screaming. It was really awful. I said out the window ‘I’m so sorry. They’re going to be OK’.”

But they almost weren’t. Massively dehydrated and traumatised, the calves looked unlikely to survive. “They all tried to die on me when I got them here,” Rachael says. “They were pretty much shitting water and blood. One of them had pneumonia. For two days I slept outside with them and every two hours I was pumping fluids into them.”

It was taxing on the mother of two. “There was a lot of tears that week because I was convinced that one of them was going to die. Even the vet said ‘You’ll have at least one probably not make it’ and I was like: ‘Not on my watch, dammit’.”

And survive they did, the prize for which is getting to live out their days dozing and grazing at Greener Pastures. And though they do like to escape their paddock, they’ve developed some good habits, too. “I taught them all to walk on halters like ponies,” Rachael says proudly. “And they’ll lift up their feet for me so I can look at their feet.”

(Excerpt taken from the West Australian magazine).