Compassionate Cow Care

ISCOWP’s beloved ox shared love with us and guests by laying down to encourage massages and pets. He also liked to leave the herd and sit down in the woods to meditate like a sadhu. The day before Christmas, he sat down in the woods, and on Christmas evening he died.

His name was Sri Uddharan Datta Thakur, named after a devotee of Lord Nityananda by Jimmy Devine, who helped rescue him. His sudden passing was a total shock. Our vet looked at him only a week before and thought he was very healthy. During the day and a half of Sri sitting and after he left his body, we noticed there were no signs of thrashing, no signs of pain, or discomfit.

He was born in 2008 back when we did not have a video camera. In human years he was in his late sixties. He will be remembered for sharing his love with us for 14 years and even with guests he met for the first time. Not seeing him in the woods meditating saddens our hearts but may he now have a more heavenly place to meditate on transcendental topics.

About Cows

Sometimes a cow may have trouble walking. It could be he has an abscess on the bottom of his foot. That was the problem with Madhava when we noticed he was limping. We called the vet and she came and discovered he had an abscess on the bottom of his left front hoof. The vet said she would have to lance it so the abyss could drain. She lanced it and told us that every other day for a week we should soak his left front hoof in a solution of Epson salt, iodine, and water for 10 minutes.

In order to get this accomplished, we had to bribe him with grain so he would stand still. He was also massaged and brushed to encourage him to stand still. We have done a little more than the requested time for soaking his foot and now Madhava is walking without limping. You can view the process of soaking his foot in this Facebook video.

Guests

ISCOWP is not officially open but we were planning on opening right before Omicron hit. Keyur and Lahari had scheduled a visit weeks in advance. They recently adopted Meenakshi, and then her health began to decline. Their hope had been to visit with her but she passed away before they could come. Here are Facebook photos of their visit.