#03 Guernsey Mystery Cache

About this series:

This series of caches is based upon the life and work of dairy farmers Mark & Pen DeLogg on the Lincolnshire Fens. As well clues to solving the puzzle on each cache page will be a fact about cows and their behaviour, as well as information about particular breeds of cattle around the British Isles and the world.

• The cache is not hidden at the published coordinates.
• Steep drops and water may be encounted at some GZs, keep the little ones safe.
• No animals were encountered when the caches were placed.
• The cache size was made as large as possible according to the hiding place, varying from magnetic nanos to regular size boxes
• You may need to provide your own TOTT i.e tweezers
• Please park sensibly, safely, and considerably.
• The D/T ratings concern the difficulty to both the puzzle and hides.

Other caches in this series:

Cow Fact:

A cow's udder contains two pairs of mammary glands, (commonly referred to as teats) creating four "quarters". The front ones are referred to as fore quarters and the rear ones rear quarters.

About Guernsey Cows:
As its name implies, the Guernsey was bred on the British Channel Island of Guernsey. It is believed to be descended from two breeds brought over from nearby France, Isigny cattle from Normandy and the Froment du Léon from Brittany. The Guernsey was first recorded as a separate breed around 1700. In 1789, imports of foreign cattle into Guernsey were forbidden by law to maintain the purity of the breed .The cow weighs 450 to 500 kg, slightly more than the average weight of the Jersey cow which is around 450 kg . The bull weighs 600 to 700 kg which is small by standards of domestic cattle, and they can be surprisingly aggressive. The Guernsey cow has many notable advantages for the dairy farmer over other breeds. These include high efficiency of milk production, low incidence of calving difficulty and longevity. They are fawn and white in colour.

Now for the puzzle:

Farmer Mark DeLogg doesn’t own a bull, so to breed replacements for his dairy herd he has to use artificial insemination (AI). By doing this he not only can get the best genetics to use on his herd but can tailor the bull to the cows needs therefore improving poor traits in his herd.

It was also cheaper and less dangerous than keeping a bull on the farm.

Mark had been trained to do AI some years ago whilst away at college. It was always a good talking point around the dinner table when friends came round.

Like when you buy anything, glossy brochures are produced by the breeding companies to promote their bulls. These were usually Marks bedtime reading matter, much to the consternation of Pen DeLogg, and were sometimes referred to his mucky books.

The semen is bought in frozen straws and stored in Liquid Nitrogen until it is needed. When required it is unfrozen in hot water then inseminated into the cow when she is on heat.

After much research he decided to invest a bull with 53 proven daughters.

He had a low Somatic cell count with excellent legs and feet as Mark’s cows always had trouble going lame but this bull should improve that.

Udder support was never a problem with Marks cows as they were always well attached.

One thing he did need to improve in his cows was teat length, because sometimes the milking machine would keep falling off some cows whilst being milked.

A steep foot angle would also help with the lameness in his cows he sometime encounters.

All in all he was satisfied that this bull would improve the genetics of his herd and bring in some fresh new blood into his herd.

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