A miniature Hereford cow who escaped from her new home in Boothbay on July 16 was found, safe, if frightened, two days later, right behind the barn she had been staying in.

Daisy was brought to Boothbay by her new owners, Amy Reny and Becky Abbott, on July 15. It had been a dream of Reny’s to own a mini-cow. She found one for sale on Craigslist in Sturbridge, Massachusetts.

After picking Daisy up, Reny and Abbott were concerned about the little cow when they returned to Boothbay and released her at her new home, Burke’s Island Farm. Daisy had spent her first year at a quiet farm with a herd of cows, and it was the first time she had been away from her familiar surroundings. “It was a long day,” Abbott said. “It was hot, and she had spent five hours in a trailer. She was scared.”

When she was released from the trailer, Daisy took off and started running down Route 27, toward Boothbay Harbor.

A group of people from the farm started chasing her, and she was eventually overtaken. “We brought her home and put her in a small barn where it was quiet, hoping she’d settle in,” Abbott said.

Around 10 a.m. the next day, when Reny and Abbott were enjoying some time off, Abbott got a call from a woman who went to the barn to check on the mini cow.“Daisy’s not here,” she said.

“We were panicked,” Abbott said. “We started to hunt for her immediately. We got a message saying she’d been spotted running down Route 27. There was a beer fest going on down the road, and there was a lot of traffic and people around. Daisy wasn’t used to a lot of commotion.”

A crew of volunteers from the farm started heading down the road knocking on doors. “A lot of people thought it was a joke,” Abbott said. “When they realized we were serious, they started calling friends for backup.”

Reny posted a picture of Daisy with this message on Facebook: “Has anyone seen this cow? She's on the loose ...”

A short time later, another post followed: “Daisy is our newest member of the barn. She's a miniature cow that just arrived yesterday and it was a long drive for her. It was her first time in a trailer and being away from her mother. She is still young so if you see her, please do not approach her. Daisy is not a threat and is harmless but as you can imagine, she is probably very scared, stressed, and tired right now and we want her safe and home as soon as possible.”

Reny and Abbott, along with a lot of concerned volunteers, continued looking for Daisy until 9 p.m. Sunday. At one point, they spotted tracks in mudflats hugging a cove at the end of Dover Cross Road. Seth Lewis, a friend of the two women, is a tracker and an animal lover. “We called him, and he was out there Sunday night until 9, too,” Abbott said. “We were all seeing a lot of tracks, and we’d send pictures to him asking, ‘Is this a deer? Is it a moose? Or is it a cow?’”

They finally went home to get some sleep, and got up around 5 a.m. Monday, July 17, to resume the search. “A lot of people were out there helping at that point,” Reny said. “The Facebook post got shared over 100 times, and had over 5,000 views.”

Next, Reny posted a Facebook message asking for help from someone with a drone and/or a dog who could track, and a reward of $200 and a free week at Burke’s Island Farm Camp were offered to anyone who found Daisy.

People were rallying around the search. Money for the reward started coming in, and people were stopping their cars and offering their help. Videographer Jonne Trees showed up with his drone. A man from Mechanic Falls who saw the Facebook posts offered to bring his tracking dogs.

Lewis returned to resume the search. The whole crew from Brown Brothers was out looking for Daisy. People were Facebook messaging, texting and calling, and one person made up posters with a photo of Daisy and the words, ‘Missing and very sweet,’ and hung them around town.

“We had a recording of a cow mooing on our phones, hoping she’d respond to that,” Abbott said. “We tried a lot of different moos – including a distressed mom moo.”

Around 7 p.m., Reny’s son, Stevie, who was back at the farm with his friend Nick Littlefield, called and said, “You owe me $200. I see Daisy.” Reny didn’t believe him, and told him to take a picture. He did. She was peeking around the back of the little barn she had escaped from.

A big group of the volunteers who had helped in the two-day search for the little cow corralled her into the barn. “We all went in and closed the door, and after a few minutes she came right up to us, and she was home.”

On July 20, Daisy was relaxing in a large pen with her new friend, Honey the horse.