January 26,1996

Livestock journals often rerun old photographs of show cattle from the stockshows of yore, proving how much cattle have changed over the years. Out in the pastures, no pictures are needed.

Sterile flies to stop the screwworm menace and bountiful sacked goods to introduce chronic lethargy made a dramatic difference in the species. Where once wild old sisters tore off into the brush, teaching their calves to flee at the sound of horsemen or the swish of a lariat, they now stand at tailgates bawling a pitiful tune, identical to the symptoms for deep internal miseries.

I stare in absolute disbelief at the indifference the modern-day cow shows to a calf cut off across the fence. In other times, only ranches having bull wire fences held mothers away from their babies.

Gentle cattle were a novelty. The notion that cowboys sat up on the top rail of corrals must have originated from horned cattle putting the men on the fence. Around the works of those days, quite a number of horses were gored and lots of hombres wearing heavy boots and big spurs discovered bursts of speed hitherto unknown among mounted men. But the bonding of the cow brutes to the feed sack and end of the trauma of doctoring cattle on the range ended those traits.

The newsletter for the Texas and Southwest Cattle Raiser's Association revealed a new breakthrough in animal husbandry not too long ago, reporting how a Colorado research station discovered that cattle having cow licks above their eyes had calm dispositions. The station concluded cattle and horse breeders might use this guideline to breed gentle animals.

The first thing I did was to check for cow licks in our bulls. All of the old ones had bushy brows and pronounced tufts of hair, interspersed with patches worn off from fighting and rubbing against trees to scratch for lice. The way better papered bull dealers shave the bulls' heads for sales to make them pretty, I am unsure whether regrowth comes back as a "lick," or a big swath of coarse hair. Generous handouts of range cubes also rules out assuring an animal is docile. During the winter season, a strong pickup horn and a full feed box make a roundup crew. Telling whether a cow is wild after she has been on feed a few days is kind of like analyzing the patients' personalities coming out of dentist offices. Full of laughing gases and shot up on opiates, the likes of the Wild Man from Borneo could gentle down to a manageable patient.

The best case was a heifer-breeding ox I bought in the fall whose behavior indicates unhappy childhood experiences. He displays a vigorous distrust of man, either in a seated position behind a steering wheel or placed behind the saddle horn. He has a full-grown cow lick, but analyzing his brow has to be done by shooting off his tailhead as he takes off for the brushy draw north of the windmill.

Were he the first low birthweight bull to come on the ranch, the tendency to escape might be linked to birth size, or traced back to a strain of racing bulls. The notion is not unreasonable. Houdini, the greatest of escape artists, was such a small baby that he slipped through the bars of his crib before he was weaned, without ever hanging a safety pin or dropping his diaper. The maternity ward nurses also kept a close eye on Mrs. Houdini to be sure she didn't pull a fast one, like she had tried once before to leave her first kid at the hospital. The fact no baby pictures of Houdini exist to prove or disapprove he had a cow lick doesn't mean a thing. Until color film began to gloss up the cherub's features and hide the mother's disappointment, lots of shots of mom and babe disappeared, especially those of red-headed boys.

We will have to wait to spring to test the cow lick theory. Once the cows slick off from the fresh greenery and the yearlings find new life, we should be able to determine the validity of the research. The only bull rider I know is retired and cuts hair over in San Angelo, making him a good prospect to discuss cow licks. But he stays so outmatched, trying to keep four year-old boys stuck in his chair, I haven't the heart to ask him for an interview.

The next break will be to watch the prodigy of the snuffy heifer bull. They might be just the guinea pig the research station needs to complete their case ...