See, Boss?

August 13, 2009 10:42 AM

What's the cattle call heard in "The Farmer's Wife"?

In the David Sutherland film "The Farmer's Wife," the farmer often yells what sounds like "See-boss" or "Sib-ass" to the cattle that he's trying to herd.

What in the world is he saying, and why does he say that?

posted by yalestar to Society & Culture (2 answers total)

It's a nonsense word to let the cows know you're not a predator and to keep them calm. At the cattle farm in Alberta where I worked for a while, we would yell "Kah boss, k'boss k'boss..." when we were moving the cattle. They used holistic low-stress animal management, so whenever we had to move around among the herd (to count calves, or match pairs, or bring them feed or mineral), in order to keep the cows calm, we would murmur "Baaahhhsss, baahssss" to mimic the way mama cows moo to their calves and each other.

It was pretty cool how the cows responded to that sound. We had to round them up to tag the calves, and they were all spread out in a pasture. We stood at the gate and yelled BOSS BOSS BOSS and they all slowly started moving towards us. And saying "Ohhh, Bossie" to a mama cow who was upset because you were kneeling on her baby and tagging its ear would really calm her down.
posted by jschu at 11:20 AM on August 13, 2009

never seen the film, but I wanted to second jschu's use. Growing up on a ranch in ND, we would also say k'boss or km'boss.

Now I would also be interested in finding out the origin!
posted by Eicats at 11:40 AM on August 13, 2009