Herriot tests the Copfields’ feral Galloway cattle for tuberculosis

James Herriot’s tuberculin test of Mr. Copfield’s eighty-five Galloway cattle shows how a national veterinary scheme met the realities of rural practice: testing required more than a syringe and a diagnosis, because the animals were almost untouched by people. With Frank and George Copfield helping to catch and hold the herd, Herriot completed the work in arduous conditions and emerged exhausted, yet convinced that this was still the life he wanted.

The survey and the herd

The national tuberculosis scheme was beginning to reach the Yorkshire Dales, where more progressive farmers were requesting survey tests. Herriot was travelling to carry out one on a herd that stood apart from the ordinary demands of practice. Siegfried Farnon had described the Copfield Galloways as the toughest cattle in the practice: eighty-five animals, none accustomed to being tied, living on the fells, calving and raising their calves outside. They had scarcely been handled and were, in practical terms, nearly wild.

That history shaped the test before it began. Herriot could not approach the herd as a group of settled farm animals that would readily submit to examination. The cattle had been gathered into the farm buildings, filling the available spaces: about twenty-five in a passage beside the fold yard, twenty in an old stable, and two groups of twenty in large loose boxes. A routine survey had become a task of catching individual animals in close quarters and administering an intradermal injection to each one.

The Copfield brothers’ skill

The family’s ability to manage the herd rested especially on Frank and George. They had grown up with the Galloways, first handling calves as soon as they could walk and gradually learning to deal with larger cattle. Their experience did not make the animals tame; it gave the brothers the confidence and practiced methods required to work among them. When Herriot asked whether the cattle could be caught, Frank calmly prepared to try.

The work quickly demonstrated why that assistance mattered. Approached from the front, the cattle could charge; from behind, they could kick. The brothers used halters and their knowledge of how to get hold of an animal, persisting even when a beast surged away and pulled them along. Herriot had to work within the same crowded spaces, where a frightened animal could turn or back into him. His own role depended on the brothers’ ability to restrain each animal long enough for the test. Their familiarity was not an incidental convenience but the practical condition that made the survey possible.

A difficult working day

The testing proceeded amid the heat and noise of the packed buildings, with cattle difficult to catch and handle. The brothers’ manner helped give the work the spirit of a shared effort: they called encouragement to one another, and even mishaps became occasions for laughter rather than an interruption to the task. Herriot, however, was repeatedly caught in the movement of the herd. A cow’s tail struck his face, and a bullock backing away pressed him against the railings. These episodes made plain the physical risk of attempting a standardized test on animals with so little experience of restraint.

The youngest calves were not an easy final stage. They kicked, bucked, and darted about, and the brothers sometimes had to hold them down so Herriot could inject them. Their mothers, waiting outside, called in response. The detail underscores the scale of the undertaking: the survey had to include not only the large, powerful adults but also the small animals whose agility made them difficult to handle in a different way. Herriot and the brothers continued until the work was finished around midday.

Aftermath and significance

Herriot left the buildings exhausted by the heat, noise, and effort. Frank and George brought him water and a scrubbing brush before he set off. About a mile from the farm, he stopped beside the unfenced road, got out of the car, and rested on the fell-side. His body was still feeling the strain of the work, but the pause also gave the episode its reflective close: he considered how strange it was to earn a living by conducting a scientific investigation in such conditions.

The alternative he imagined was an office, shut away from traffic fumes and noise, with figures under a desk light and a bowler hat on the wall. Against that orderly picture, the Copfield test represented the unpredictable, hands-on character of veterinary work in the Dales. Herriot’s conclusion was not that the difficulty had been pleasant or trivial; it was that he was not complaining. The day joined scientific procedure to local knowledge and physical labour, showing that a national survey could only be carried out through the particular skills of the people and animals on the farm.