Ox-eyed Daisies

Today at the dairy we had the Running of the Dry Cows.  I'd never seen it before and waited for the end of milking w/ anticipation.  The only mechanism to apply fly spray to the cows is to have them walk from the parlor back to the barn down the return alleys.  There a motion detector activates a hanging overhead nozzle to spray when the cow is underneath it.  Since the dry cows are not milked for their 6 weeks of "vacation", they haven't had any fly deterrent applied.  To remedy that, once all of the cows had been milked this morning, we raised the parlor stanchions, opened all the gates so the dry cows had access to the holding pen, and stood back.  When a cow finds an open gate, especially one she doesn't think should be open, she goes through and starts bellowing.  The other cows come to see what the fuss is about.  Soon they are running around (we never run the cows but it is a little hard to stop them once they start) mooing, all a-twitter.  It is then just a matter of letting them move around the holding pen until they decide to go into the parlor, and down the return alley to get their dose of fly spray.  A gentle push of any stragglers who didn't go into the parlor or those cows so excited they went into the parlor and then ran back into the holding pen and we were all done.  Not quite the spectacle of Pamplona's Running of the Bulls but still great fun to watch.