Dung and Determination: It's a Dirty Situation

Here's today's list of farm chores:

• Feed and water the animals

• Snuggle the goats (essential, obviously)

• Collect the eggs

• Mulch the garlic

• Chisel petrified cow dung off of May Belle’s tail

  
  

I tell you what, I am not looking forward to that last one. In fact, I didn’t even know this was a thing—but apparently it’s a very real and very gross thing.

So, here’s the situation: our sweet, pregnant dairy cow May Belle has somehow managed to accumulate a clump of manure on her tail. It's not dainty. It's not demure. No, this is a fully-formed, cow-poop stalactite in which part of her tail is fully encased—and we have to remove it before her baby arrives. If we don’t, it’ll just keep on growing until it becomes… well… a dangerous dingleberry of epic proportions. First of all, barf. Second, if it grows and wraps tightly around her tail, it can actually restrict blood flow. Daaaang, right? In extreme cases, the tail can freeze or even fall off in cold weather. And we don't need that kind of drama. We really don't.

Naturally, I tried pulling pieces of it off by hand (I was wearing gloves, okay?), but they wouldn’t budge. It’s like the poop and tail hair have fused into some kind of unholy alliance. My husband suggested spraying her backside with the hose, but I can’t imagine her holding still for that nonsense.

The internet says repeatedly soaking the tail in warm, soapy water can help soften it up. Apparently, if you follow that up with some fancy-pants horsehair detangler, it works even better to loosen the clumps. Seem a little bougie but reasonable. Manageable. Another popular suggestion I saw was, and I kid you not, WD-40.

Multiple Google searches claim the oiliness of WD-40 works miracles on “tail balls,” breaking down the cementified (I made up that word) cake of fecal matter so it can be gently removed.

I'm not sure which direction we're going to go yet, but I could very well be standing at the dirty business end of our cow with a can of multipurpose lubricant, saying things like “Hold still, May Belle, let Mama massage the WD-40 into your tail just a liiiiiiiitle while longer .”

So yeah—when your cow has a dirty derriere, you suck it up and do what you gotta do.

I keep reminding myself:

I can do hard things.

And gross things.

I can.