Julie, Chuck, Theresa, Katie, Emily and Rose, all I can say is that I did my best.

But the news is not good. The next time you see Billy, she’ll probably be wrapped in plastic on the shelf at Price Chopper.

The front page of yesterday’s Valley News contained an article by my colleague John P. Gregg about Billy, an 11-year-old Holstein that had produced a bodacious amount of milk during her long life at the Grafton County Farm. But that life was coming to an end, Gregg reported, as county officials prepared to send Billy to the slaughterhouse.

Faster than you can say cheeseburger, the switchboard at this newspaper and Grafton County government lit up with calls from New Hampshire and Vermont. People were heartbroken at the prospect of Billy’s demise, and said they wanted to give Billy a nice pasture in which to live out her days.

In Enfield, Julie Adams told her children — aged 10 and 12 and voracious milk drinkers — that they might soon be sharing their 10 acres and small pond with a retired dairy cow.

“I said ‘Don’t get your hopes up, but we’ll see what we can do,’ ” said Adams, who works in inside sales at Hypertherm. “It’s just too bad that after so many years of service that she would end up going to … a dinner plate.”

In Thetford Hill, Rose Sethi recalled growing up on a dairy farm in Ireland and telephoned to say that she’d be willing to buy the cow from Grafton County and find it a grassy field in which to live out its days.
“People keep other pets,” she said. “Why not a cow?”

For one week in April, 600 dairy cows in New England and 50,000 nationwide went to slaughter, according to the latest federal figures. Even the most passionate animal lovers aren’t opening their pastures and wallets to save them, last time I checked.

But there was something about Billy. She had produced more than 200,000 pounds of milk, some of which may have ended up on your children’s cereal or in your grilled cheese sandwich. She had been gentle with her keepers, including jail inmates working at the county farm. “She’s a calm cow, likes to be petted,” said one of her tenders.

I’m not exactly a vegetarian: I had sausage for breakfast, chicken salad at lunch and a burger is sounding good for dinner just now. But I was touched. Surely, in these grim times, something can be done to win this noble beast a reprieve.

I called Ray Burton, the Grafton County Commissioner and Executive Council member who takes pride in bringing home the bacon — sorry, I couldn’t resist — for his constituents. And I knew this would be more than an abstract issue for Burton; why, just last week, he posed for a picture with the prolific milker.

“I’ve heard about this cow for several years. She’s a very high producer,” he told me from his Concord office. He promised to look into whether Billy could be saved. “I love doing constituent service, as you know. That’s my forte.”

Five minutes later, though, Burton called back to say that Billy was already on a truck heading for slaughter. “Billy the cow was not in good health and she was not long for this world.”

Sorry, Commissioner, I’m not going to give up so easily.

I tracked down Don Kimball, manager of the county farm. He explained that after being a productive milk cow a half-decade longer than most, Billy had begun to come down with udder infections that had grown increasingly unresponsive to antibiotics. He estimated that she would have survived only one more month at the farm.

“She left on the beef truck at 12:30,” he said. “She’s just a regular beef cow now. Her time was up.”

Another call yielded a ray of hope. County officials told me Billy’s truck was headed for McCracken Livestock in St. Albans, Vt., where the cattle would be sorted and sent to their final destinations. Barney McCracken, vice-president of the company, told me, “If I have an idea of what animal it is, I’m sure it can be saved.”

Upon reflection, though, he said that decision would have to be made by the dealer who had trucked the animal. That would be Ray Thayer, a livestock dealer based in North Haverhill.

Reached on his cell phone late yesterday afternoon, Thayer was friendly but held out no hope. Once a cow has been transported with other cows destined for slaughter, it has potentially been exposed to disease and is governed by state and federal regulations designed to keep animals and food products safe, Thayer said.

He had already glued a federal “back tag” — No. 12AAA6993 — to Billy’s hide. Once the tag is attached, he said, the cow must be slaughtered.

And what if one of yesterday’s callers wanted to try for a last-minute stay? “If that back tag is there, they’ll have to call a state veterinarian,” Thayer said. “I don’t want to jeopardize my license.”

By this time, it was 5:15 p.m. Billy was in St. Albans or close to it, and Thayer said it was possible she could be loaded on a truck for the slaughterhouse that same night. A message on the answering machine at the state agriculture office said it was closed for the day.

The only hope, it seemed, was Burton, who grew up on a dairy farm and went on to become an influential mover in state government.

No such luck. “I’m not going to call the state veterinarian of either state,” Burton told me. “This cow has come to the end of its natural life.”