I came across this video of an ox pumping water for itself, and remembered the below clipping I'd saved of a cow reportedly doing the same --- way back in the 1800's.
 |
| A Cow Working a Pump Chatterbox Stories of Natural History Copyright 1880 by R. Worthington |
My informant writes me as follows: “We have a wonderful cow here—about ten years old, and very clever at opening gates and breaking fences. There is an Abyssinnian pump about three feet high in the center of the field, near my house, over a trough, which is, or ought to be, filled daily. It was on a hot day, when my man had omitted to pump the trough full, that the cow was first observed to help herself: the way in which she managed to pump was by pushing the handle up with her head and then forcing it down with her horns. Very little elevation of the handle is required to get water, and she would work it for five minutes together, and sometimes drank from the spout, and sometimes from the trough.”
