Cows Gone Wild

There was a bovine breakout earlier this week in Marshfield. During the early morning hours of July 5th, word reached local authorities that 50 head of cattle had escaped their farm under the cover of darkness and lit out down a county road. Their dreams of freedom were dashed when a citizen saw something and said something. It is, after all, difficult for 80,000 pounds of beef to sneak anywhere, even here in Dairyland.

Over a dozen people helped round up the escapees, including local residents, farmers, police officers, and even a zookeeper. Once the wayward cows were contained, there was a mini cattle drive to get them back to their corral around a mile and a half away.

The official explanation is that the herd was spooked by fireworks. However, they don’t know how the cows actually got out of their enclosure.

That last part made the Drink Wisconsinbly Week in Review Editorial Board’s antenna go up. As devotees of both prison movies and crazy conspiracy theories, we started looking for an un-simple explanation for how 50 cows ended up going over the metaphorical wall.

At first, we thought a clumsy cow might have inadvertently popped the gate with its girth after tripping on a milking stool, but decided that was too dull of an explanation. We then explored the idea of a bull from a farm on the other side of the tracks trying to elope with one of the cows in a romantic tale of forbidden love, but he would have needed opposable thumbs to pop the gate, and we figured we would have read about a bull with crude hands in the supermarket tabloids by now.

After a couple more Brandy Old Fashioneds, the explanations took a darker turn. We began to consider all the burgers we ate over the holiday weekend and wondered about a cow uprising, with a human patsy that was somehow coaxed into assisting with their escape. They may have been headed to Madison to attempt a cow coup.

It was bone-chilling. But it was also quittin’ time. So we just decided some farmer was probably careless with the gate clasp and called it a day. Admittedly, it’s not much of a conspiracy theory. However, a simple explanation beats working late. We’ve got our eye on you, though, cows. Don’t try any more funny business.