»On a farm, only one child matters: the son who remains behind. But the others, the rest, the second, third, fourth sons and the daughters, who don’t matter at all – like it or not, they remain part of the herd; they’ve grown up with the cattle, know their breathing and their bellowing, and the smell of milk and dung still clings to them; and they were raised believing in the unjust old order of father, son and holy farm. It was ever thus.«

All Broder Bahnsen has ever wanted is to be a farmer, to succeed the father from whom he has inherited his ‘cow sense’, his instinct for animals. But it’s his twin brother Henning, born just a few minutes earlier, who’s destined to inherit the farm. Henning has always been the confident one, but is more interested in machines than in cattle.

Exiled from the farm, Broder creates a counter-life for himself. He becomes a vet and stays away from the family business for more than two decades. When he returns to the area and takes over a practice near the Bahnsen farm, he ends up looking after his brother’s herd too. Henning, meanwhile, has turned their parents’ place into a hyper-modern model business with cows bred to maximise milk production.

But success comes at a price, and Broder notices that Henning is beginning to lose control over the farm. Is this what he’s been waiting for all these years? It this his chance to take his brother’s place? Or has he, like his daughter Claire, started questioning the ethics of breeding cattle in this way?