Up to Its Neck in Mud, Cow Survives a Memorable Ranch Rescue 

Checking on their grazing herd following a storm that swept through Santa Barbara County, two cattle ranchers climbed into their Polaris Ranger — an off-road vehicle — and drove over the mountain in the early afternoon of February 12. Scanning the east side of the mountain, looking for the taupe-colored cattle, the two ranchers spotted what they thought was a large boulder that had slid down the hill. “No,” one of them corrected the other. “That’s a cow.” “And she’s covered with mud.” One of their Braunvieh cows — a breed of brown Swiss cattle — had sunk into the mud. 

They believe the cow — named C-51 — attempted to walk straight down the ridge, triggering multiple layers of mud to slide. With each wiggle and attempt to release herself, she sunk deeper into the adobe mud. When one of the ranchers walked over to her to assess the severity of the situation, she was already past her knees, and they couldn’t guide her out. “Oh shit,” one of the ranchers pointedly thought.

In a situation like this, the likelihood of successfully releasing the animal is slim, the ranchers told me. But that didn’t sway them from trying. Getting rescuers to C-51 wasn’t an easy task. The property — adjacent to Dos Pueblos Ranch — where the ranchers keep their cattle is mountainous terrain and difficult to traverse, especially after the rains heavily muddied the area. 

Santa Barbara County firefighters navigated the valley on UTVs. They hiked some of the way before finally arriving at the scene at around 4:30 p.m. Tina Van Zandt from Santa Barbara County Animal Services arrived around the same time and aided in the rescue. The sun was slowly setting, and the team’s work had just begun. 

The team of seven firefighter — an additional firefighter arrived at the scene about halfway through the rescue — initially tried digging the cow out with shovels. But shovels were useless; the mud was too “sticky,” and stuck to the shovels, said Battalion Chief Adam Estabrook. The team reverted to digging her out by hand, using wooden boards under themselves as leverage. The crew applied their combined knowledge from past rescue missions involving mud and large animals. They reverted to digging out her legs one at a time. Estabrook said that C-51 went to the bathroom several times during the rescue. “We bonded with that animal in many different ways,” he joked. 

A herd of cattle watched the rescue from afar for about an hour before leaving, the ranchers told me. C-51’s calf was among the herd, and the ranchers were worried that she might try to get to her mother and become stuck in the mud as well. The firefighters quickly recognized that rescuing C-51 also meant rescuing her calf. “If we save this cow, we’re potentially saving a calf too,” said Estabrook. 

As darkness descended, the team relied on headlights and flashlights. About 30 minutes before the team successfully released C-51, she displayed signs of hypothermia. “She actually started to just give up,” one of the ranchers said solemnly. “She put her head down.” By this point, the rescue mission had stretched almost five hours, and the team started seriously worrying about her well-being. C-51 may have lost hope, but her rescuers’ motivation never waned. “We were so emotionally and physically invested in this call,” said Estabrook. 

Catherine Hart from Santa Barbara County Animal Services drove from Santa Maria and brought the Loops Rescue system — a sling equipped for large animal rescue. The four six-foot loops can be attached differently depending on the situation, Hart told me. Hart said cows have fragile hips, and the firefighters were extremely careful not to break or dislocate anything. The loops were attached to C-51’s front legs, and the firefighters slid a wooden board under her chest and stomach. The team used the boards as a “teeter-totter,” pressing their weight on one side to prop her up on the other. Then, all four loops were attached, and the firemen triumphantly pulled her from the mud. 

“We have so many calls that we remember our whole career,” said Sam Dudley, one of the engineers on medic engine 11. “And that will for sure be one of them for me.” The team wrapped the cow in a blue fleece blanket to increase her body temperature. The next day, one of the farmers checked on her and found the blue blanket yards away on top of the ridge. “So I knew that she was fine,” the rancher said. Two days after finding the blanket, the farmers rode horseback to check on C-51 and spotted her with her calf. “They were doing just fine.”