Fugitive cow spent nine months on the run
A shaggy haired Highland cow who escaped from a farm and evaded capture for nine months has been saved from the slaughterhouse after being sent to an animal sanctuary.
The four-year-old cow, named Floss, staged her daring break for freedom from a field in Goole, south Yorkshire, last May, fleeing under the cover of darkness.
Floss had recently arrived at the farm from market and seems to have been unsettled by being separated from her calf and put in a field with two strange cows.
The cow spent the next nine months wandering the countryside, emerging at night to eat and eventually travelling more than 60 miles down the English east coast into Lincolnshire before settling near the village of Ealand where she was dubbed the “Beast of Ealand”.
But Floss’ journey would have a happy ending when two local women — Tracey Jaine and Sue McCauley — decided to pay £500 for the cow and send it to the Hillside Animal Sanctuary, which looks after rescued farm animals, in Norfolk.
“I thought it was such a shame she was running loose and fending for herself,” said Jaine. Floss’ charmed existence had included run-ins with local yobs on quad bikes and narrowly avoiding getting splattered after straying onto land used by paintballers, she said.
McCauley said that seeing Floss off to Hillside had been “fantastic”.
“Floss trotted off the back of the trailer and it was the most wonderful thing. She ran straight towards the other Highland cows and the hay,” she said. “She really deserves it. For an animal to look after herself all that time, she deserves this life.”