Aorere’s comeback cow brings home a surprise
Number 16 arrives home just in time. Photo Gerard Hindmarsh.
In a remarkable tale of comeback, a cow that survived being washed down the Aorere River and which has lived in the bush across the river for seven months was found by its owners last week, then produced a calf for them the next day.
Rockville farmers Steve and Jenny Garrett had given up on finding the last 19 of their 70 heifers that were washed down the Aorere in the big flood of 28 December, 2010. All were swept from their runoff paddock and downstream in a torrent under the James Road Bridge, just before that suspension bridge itself was also carried away. The Garretts retrieved 30 that came ashore just downriver, plus another 21 as farmers all the way down to Ferntown reported they had washed in. They thought the last animals had surely drowned or been swept out to sea.
That was until last Sunday, when a worker on Michael Pomeroy’s farm at Bainham rang the Garretts to say he’d spotted a cow across the Aorere River, around three kilometres downstream from where the James Road Bridge used to be. The next morning dawned on the biggest snowfall over the mountains in years, but that didn’t stop Steve, Jenny and their sharemilker Simon Breach fording the Aorere River to start searching.
They followed cow tracks and located their Friesian former herd member, eartag number 16, high up in the bush. They succeeded in getting her down to the river, but the first six attempts to get her to ford a waist-deep section of the river failed. They eventually pushed her out into deep water where they found they could control her more easily - even if it meant the herders had to get up to their necks to do it.
They finally got her across and into one of Michael Pomeroy’s paddocks, but when they came back to collect her the following morning, number 16 was not alone – she’d given birth to a healthy heifer calf overnight.
Steve says cows swim quite well and it didn’t surprise him that so many of the herd survived the flood.
“They have strong necks that they keep up out of the water. As soon as their legs touch the bottom, they’re walking and trying to get out. But to think she went through all that pregnant and had a big drama the day before calving…we reckon she’s quite a cow.”
Number 16 has now been inducted into the early milking herd at the Garretts’ Stoney Field Farm at Rockville, while the calf will be reared as a replacement.
Washaway cow stories are not uncommon in Golden Bay’s history. Clive Bird recalls when he and his father Eric spied a bedraggled yearling steer washed up barely alive on their Waitapu farm during a big flood in 1945.
“It had a red hide, which we could see quite clearly because there was no hair left on it, all scraped off on the rough river rocks. My father couldn’t believe it had survived, but he was even more amazed when we realised it had come all the way down from a grazing licence up the Cobb.”
As it was impractical to return it, Eric Bird posted the lessee (Mytton) a cheque for £5 to cover the purchase of the steer, but the grazier never cashed it, firmly fixed in the belief that none of his cattle could have survived the raging river ride down from the Cobb to Waitapu…over 30 kilometres.
Gerard Hindmarsh
