Wednesday, May 14, 1997
City Girl Kills Fatted
Cow
by Abonner201
Being a city girl, what I know about raising cows could be put on a postage stamp. But I have been investing in the stock market for about 20 years, with a few losses, a few gains. I believe in buying stocks that are well-known. This I learned the hard way. My losses were in unheard of stocks, then and now.
When my husband, a part-time farmer, suggested a way to make fast money on the "live" stock market I thought it sounded like fun. Boy was I mistaken. I had pictures of myself holding a cute little calf peacefully drinking from a bottle while looking at me with large adoring eyes. I was living in a dream world.
We went to the cattle auction (another story altogether) and bought four calves. That's when the dream ended and the nightmare began. Calves are strong; you cannot hold them in your arms. They are not peaceful eaters, either. They guzzle quart-sized bottles of milk by constantly butting against the bottle and you, and must be fed several times a day and night. Also, they require many shots to keep them from getting various cow diseases.
Did I mention the spring rains? We would rise at 5:00 to prepare formula, drive to the farm, stand in the rain and mud feeding calves, and hurry back home to change for our real jobs. By the end of the first week all four of our "investments" were beginning to look sickly. My husband began mumbling something about "shipping fever" and other strange-sounding diseases. We invested more money in needles, medicine, vitamins, and formula.
The rains continued for three more days, and in spite of various murky looking drugs and antidotes prescribed by the local druggist/vet, two calves died. That meant we had to make twice as much on the other two to break even. A third calf died the next day, and when the fourth calf lay gasping in the mud, my husband, the farmer, took a rifle and put the poor animal out of its misery.
This ended our venture in the "live" stock market. We spent bundles of money on calves, medicine, formula, and medical equipment. Loss of sleep and stress did not help our tempers at work or home, either.
My advice is let someone who is in the business of raising little critters have all that fun. Stock on paper may get a disease, but at least you won't have to get up in the middle of the night to feed it, or shoot it in the end. I try to buy only healthy stock now. I check out their dividends and PE ratio, and watch them for several months to be sure they don't have "shipping fever" or some other nasty disease.
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