If you've been around more than three head of livestock for any length of time, you no doubt have noticed that some cattle are tractable and mild-tempered while others are wild as deer--even when handled the same.

It's not a new observation, but no one--to my knowledge--has come up with a reason why most animals in a herd are docile, while a few are mean and flighty throughout their lives.

"They're nuts!" maintains Eldon Cole, referring to the outlaws. Cole, livestock specialist in southwest Missouri, recently bought 64 steers for a research project.

Despite the fact that the cattle were gathered and weighed every 28 days, most of them were as hard to manage at the end of summer as when Cole unloaded them last spring.

"Each time we worked them, we had a wreck or two," Cole said. "Of the 64 head in the study, 10 were real troublemakers. They stayed crazy and incorrigible."

You've known cattle like that, probably. I know I have. I once owned a dandy cow (in most respects) that was "nuts." But she calved every spring within two weeks of when she calved the year before, and her calves weaned off in the top 10 percent of the herd.

I learned early on that it didn't do to turn your back on that old rip, especially if her calf was younger than about a month old. She put me up a tree one morning when I went out to check her new calf.

I chalked it up to excessive maternal instinct and walked around her from then on. But when we got up the cows, she was always last into the pen, usually after two or three sashays around the alley. She tore up more equipment and mashed more fingers than the rest of the cows combined.

Why she misbehaved, I haven't a clue. We managed her the same way we handled the rest of the herd. I

didn't chase her on a four-wheeler, sic the dogs on her or hit her with a cattle prod--except in self defense. But her personality never changed, unless it was to get worse.

As I said, that cow stayed around longer than she might have, because of the calves she brought in. But one morning, she bayed me for two hours in a bale feeder and she went to town.

I believe Eldon Cole may be right. There may be no better explanation for the way some cattle behave than "They're nuts."