Laura Murdoch, 39, Invercargill, NZ, shares her story with Take 5’s Astha Gupta:
I gently patted the cow in front of me to ease her, as I cupped her to milk.
“How are you doing today, Daisy?” I asked, rubbing her udders as I attached her teat to the milking machine.
I was 17 and loved milking cows so much that I wanted to do it full time after finishing school.
I couldn’t explain the obsession, but I was just somehow drawn to cows.
But my dream was sadly shattered aged 19 in 2002 when I started to experience extreme pain in my hands, wrists and arms.
I was diagnosed with carpel tunnel syndrome, which is caused by pressure on the median nerve.
Physical activity only made the pain worse, so milking was a no-go.
Laura loves cows (Image: supplied)
I started working in accounting instead but still did a bit of relief milking over the weekends.
Over the years, my wrists became worse and eventually, in July 2016, aged 33, I had an operation to enlarge the carpal tunnel and help relieve the pressure in it.
I was instructed to spend six weeks at home resting after, meaning I couldn’t visit the cows.
“I miss being around them,” I sighed to my Mum, Dianne.
“You should go into farming full time once you’re better,” she encouraged. “Do what you love.”
The operation had made it possible.
I put up a post on a Facebook group for farms jobs, with a description about myself and my experience, as well as my love for cows.
A few months later, I landed a second-in-charge manager role at a 83-hectare, 250-cow Mokotua property near Invercargill.
I was thrilled and couldn’t wait to get started.
Working with cows (Image: supplied)
Then on my first day, I was with the cows when one of them walked up and bellowed at me.
“Looks like she has something she wants to say to you,” the owner Chris said.
I checked her over and discovered she had a uterous infection and wanted to draw my attention to it.
“That was impressive,” Chris said. “Your sixth sense saved her.”
Soon, I knew all the cows so well I could tell each of them from their udders, without having to look at their tag numbers.
When they had mastitis – which is an inflation of breast tissue – I could catch it early on.
I always spoke away to them when treating them.
“It’s going to hurt but you’ll be okay,” I reassured them.
I also loved making videos or taking pictures with them.
“Smile, Sweetpea,” I said, snapping away.
Snapping a cow selfie (Image: supplied)
Then one day I was having a conversation with Chris.
“I wish people could see what we do,” he said.
It gave me an idea!
I started sharing my videos on TikTok to show the world how cute and cuddly cows were and people loved it.
In one video, where I talked about taking out weeds stuck in between a cow’s hooves, it got 70,000 views.
In another, I was filming a herd of cows when another cow appeared out of nowhere and “photo bombed” the footage.
That video went viral with 40,000 views.
One lady commented and called me the cow whisperer.
You always know what they want, she said.
The name stuck and everyone started calling me, LouLou the Cow Whisperer.
I’m so glad I can share my love of cows with the world.
Some people may find it a strange choice of favourite animal but for me there’s no contest.
We were made for one and udder.
