Mickey Mouse hats.
Mickey Mouse shirts.
Mickey Mouse dolls.
Mickey Mouse… cows?
Austin and Linda Moore were the owners of a dairy farm in North Whitefield, Maine.
As the story goes, an amateur photographer had taken photos on the Moore’s farm one
day back in 1988.
It was then that the photographer noticed that one of the cows, a cow named Maiden, bore the
iconic three circles of the Mickey Mouse symbol on her side.
After speaking with the Moores about it, they decided to reach out to Disney.
Disney felt that the cow would be a perfect addition to a State Fair event that was being held
at Disneyland that November, and figured that she could live out her days at Big Thunder
Ranch, which featured a petting zoo at the time.
So Disney decided to buy the cow for an undisclosed sum, and on September 20th, 1988 the six-year-old
Maiden was transported to Disneyland in California and officially renamed to Mickey Moo.
Meanwhile, over in Edgerton Minnesota, Melvin and Bill Brockberg had their own farm and
their own cow, and this cow also had the famous Mickey Mouse symbol on its side.
Allegedly the cow wasn’t the best producer of milk and on a number of occasions the Brockbergs
considered sending her to a slaughterhouse.
However with the spotlight on Mickey Moo, the Brockbergs and Disney got to talking and
in the fall of 1990 Disney purchased the holstein cow, again for an undisclosed sum.
The cow, dubbed Minnie Moo, was sent to the east coast to live at Walt Disney World.
Like Mickey Moo, Minnie was headed for a petting zoo.
This one was called Grandma Duck’s Barnyard and was in the Magic Kingdom at Mickey’s Starland.
However beyond that, Minnie Moo got to do a bit of traveling.
In 1991 she had the honor of presiding over the opening of the 47th Annual Osceola County
Livestock Show.
Understandably she’d have problems cutting through a ribbon, being a cow and all, so instead
the event organizers made a ribbon out of braided hay that Minnie Moo would eat through.
Disney was capitalizing on a fun little happenstance, but without realizing it, they kicked off a small craze.
After hearing about Mickey and Minnie Moo, people all across the country were starting to reach out to Disney
about naturally occurring Mickey heads.
Everything from cats and dogs to pigs and even moles on people’s skin.
In some instances people writing in were just looking for some form recognition, and in
many cases, their letters contained the veiled hints that for the right price, they’d part
with their Mickey adorned pets.
For the most part Disney politely declined the offers.
Ultimately they would only purchase Mickey and Minnie Moo along with two pigs for their petting zoo.
Oh, and they did purchase one more thing: a Mickey Mouse potato.
In March of 1991 Michelle Lachance of Lincoln Nebraska sold Disney a Mickey Mouse potato.
Once again the sum was undisclosed.
A local radio station offered Lachance $5,000 for the potato in order to boil and mash it
live on the air, but she declined.
When asked about it later she said “That $5,000 was a lot more than we’ll get from
Disney, I’ll tell you that.
But if we took it, we wouldn’t have the honor of knowing our potato was on display
in Orlando.”
As for Mickey and Minnie Moo, they lived out the rest of their lives at their respective
Disney parks.
Mickey Moo lived at Disneyland until the age of 11, but unfortunately had to be euthanized
due to a terminal intestinal disorder.
With the closing of Mickey’s Starland, Minnie Moo would find a new home at the Tri-Circle
D Ranch at Disney’s Fort Wilderness Campgrounds.
According to the Main Street Gazette, she lived out her days there until passing away
in August of 2001.
In neither case were the deaths publicized, however when asked about it Disney would confirm
that they had no intentions of replacing either Mickey or Minnie Moo.
Perhaps it was because they felt the cows were too unique to replace or maybe they just
realized that the novelty of a mickey head on barnyard animals could only last so long.
Regardless of the reason, the fad of Mickey shapes on animals and objects slowly faded.
Mickey and Minnie Moo were cute coincidences, and they were coincidences that kicked off
a short race to try and capitalize on Disney’s pocketbook.
Just another unique and small corner of Disney history.