Animal rights activists have demanded that one of the signature sounds of the Bavarian Alps – the gentle ringing of distant cow bells – be brought to an end, claiming it is cruel to the animals.
A woman was trampled to death by cows near Laax in the Swiss canton of Graubünden after walking through a field containing grazing cows and their calves, cantonal police have reported.
The summer heat seems to have got cows all fired up in the west German town of Aachen this week - with many apparently heading out in search of pastures new.
According to estimates of the national veterinary association 180,000 pregnant cows are killed every year in Germany. The government now wants to ban this practice.
The widow of a farmer killed by one of his bulls earlier this month is suing an animal rights group that used an image of her deceased husband for slandering the memory of the dead, it was reported on Wednesday.
Local authorities in Pinneberg, Schleswig-Holstein, brought in hunters to gun down 21 cows after they left a trail of destruction across the countryside.
The EU Commission wants to regulate where cows can lay their pies in the name of protecting ground water, but Bavarian farmers say that the new rules stink.
Cattle thieves have broken into a dairy farm near Hamburg and stolen seven pregnant cows. They were worth over €10,000 and on Monday were still missing.
German scientists tackling one of the less appetising problems in modern agriculture reckon that cow burps and farts could become less damaging for the ozone layer if their dinner is more maize than grass.
A cow injured two men in central Germany on Wednesday while making a break for freedom from an abattoir. One of the victims was so badly hurt he had to go to hospital.
An anthrax outbreak has left at least nine cows dead and 50 people on antibiotics in eastern Germany, authorities said on Friday. Experts fear the cause was infected dead animals buried where the cows were grazing.
A Munich firm has patented "night milk" taken from cows during the night, which it claims has high levels of "sleep hormone" melatonin and can improve the sleep of people who drink it.
Some 200 of Germany’s prettiest dairy cows are strutting their stuff this week at one of the country’s largest livestock beauty contests near Versen.
