Cows will not go to trough

I have completed the game with gold on every level except levels 5-5 and 5-18. Level 5-18 requires five adult cows. The last cow or two will not go to the trough even though the adult cows will go repeatedly. I have tried everything I can think of: ignoring them, petting them gently, beating them over the head with my cursor (which doesn't work although it is emotionally satisfying). At times the cow will go up to the trough, then turn away at the last moment. Level 5-5 requires twelve cheesecakes. The last time I played, I bought three cows. In five minutes, one went to the trough four times, the other two not at all. Any ideas?

I have not completed this level yet but in past I would have suggested having 7 cows to get 5 of them to adulthood but on 4-17 i'm finding that 5 seems to be the limit of cows you can purchase at one time not sure if its true on this level or not.

Also I found that planting 2 grass close to the cow trough usually entices them to feed more but its hard to plant only 2 at a time without accidently planting them anywhere else

BTW How in world did you get gold on Level 4-17 it really has me stumped best i've gotten in gold time is 11 cheesecakes I've gotten silver at 9:36 but thats still a good 40secs shy of gold

I wish developers would keep strategy games to STRATEGY and not LUCK it completely ruins the game

Sorry, I did not get gold on 4-17 either. Just did not notice it when I posted earlier. Same problem as the other two: the cows just won't cooperate. You can have a maximum of only five cows on any of the levels. I just tried 4-17 with only two cows and did just as well as I did with five! They seem to get in each other's way. When two meet, they often turn in opposite directions from each other and if one is heading for the trough when this happens it's very annoying. Frankly, I think this is a programming glitch. I've enjoyed the game otherwise.

Found your post on 4-17 and used it to get gold on that level. Thanks. Tried the same watering strategy on the above levels but still cannot even get silver. There are just too many animals and too many pests.

sell the cowa and get knew ones, mabey that works

on which level?

If you upgrade the troughs, more than one cow can eat at the same time.

A couple of tips:

1 - When a cow *does* produce cream, pet it 7 or 8 times and it will produce another pitcher of cream.

2 - Don't over plant grass. Let it run out from time to time. I notice that when the grass runs low and animals start to moan and lie down, at least one or two of each animal heads to it's respective trough to eat.