I recently spent a month at a beef ranch in the Dominican Republic for a field ecology course. This post is the result of an hour of focal animal sampling—a method of observing animal behavior—in one of the many pastures on site.

Why did I do this?

I have no idea what it’s like to be a cow on a ranch. Everything I know about life in the wild is second-hand, and I find it hard to imagine anything between free, happy animals frolicking in their untouched habitats and terrifyingly grim predation events. I worry that I feel bad for wild animals in way that seems too abstract, and I wanted to have more proximate interactions that would help me recalibrate.

Epistemic status: I had originally intended to spend 10 hours on this but could only spend one. This significantly limits the scope of the interactions I witnessed. Things I think are important that I missed: mother-calf interactions, sound recordings (slurps when drinking water, sound of grass being ripped out), and tracking where the cows direct their attention. The results of my observations were mundane, so I don’t expect this to be very interesting to read. However, I do think the mundaness is important.

Site and Transcripts

These were beef cattle, so the calves were not separated from their mothers. The condition of the pasture was quite good. It seemed like they rotate grounds frequently and none of the plots were overgrown.

Here are behavioral transcripts from ~3 o’clock in the afternoon. I had climbed into the pasture and sat at the edge to record these observations. Each cow had an ID tag near its ear, and I will refer to them with this number.

• Four cows within view. 103 is closest to me and I can’t see the tags of the others. 103 is white with bumpy skin and appears to have fleas.
• 103 looks at me and moves away with its rear now facing me.
• I can hear them ripping grass out out of the ground from very far away (~300 ft?). The pasture is completely quiet except for the grass ripping.
• Their tails swat very high. 103 moves near 91. 91 is dark brown. They are neck and neck now. 103 takes 3 steps forward.
• 91 lifts it tail to swat mosquitoes.
• 103 swats. 103 takes 2 steps forward. 103 and 91 move forward 7 steps together.
• 103 is an impatient cow! Moves another 7 steps away.

At this point there are no cows on my side of the pasture that I can observe well so I climb out of the pasture and walk to a further end of the same pasture. I’m looking at new cows now, all white in color. There are some others—15, 17, 65—that drift in and out of my line of sight.

• 75 is closest to me. 10 to the right and further right, 73 behind 10.
• 10 scratches neck on right then left with mouth
• 73 pees. It was...big! It lasted ~5 seconds?
• 75 scratches leg and makes eye contact with me. Turns around 30 degrees but didn’t step away. 75 struggles to pull grass out and makes multiple attempts until it succeeds.