[I haven't seen how they look after the communal herd but they love and fondle their own cows however they never build cowsheds and keep them in staikas. A staika is something like a hovel out of half-logs leaned against huts.]
The cleaning of the staika is laborious but well-paid work. They don't take the manure away from beneath the cow for the whole winter. By the spring the cow is almost on the roof. Then they dismantle the staika and bring the manure out to the vegetable beds.
[Hercules's ability to clean Augean stables was counted as one of his twelve undying feats. I didn't look like Hercules, at least then, but in the spring of 1942 I cleaned a lot of such "Augean stables".]