I was reading a book today and one of the characters was a farmer who briefly mentioned cow magnets. Never having heard of such a thing and thinking that since it was a work of fiction perhaps the author was making things up I decided to investigate.
And guess what? There really are such things as cow magnets. But they aren't gigantic magnets to attract cows.
Apparently cows have a propensity to eat random metal objects in the course of their grazing and this can obviously lead to digestive problems. Enter the cow magnet.
This magnetic rod is fed to calves at branding time where it gets stuck in one of the stomach chambers and attracts said metal objects. In the book the farmer says that they are eventually passed through the cow's system but according to wikipedia they just stay in the stomach. Either way I found it fascinating on two counts. One, that cows are more goat-like than I had ever suspected and actually swallow things like barbed wire and Two, that humans invented such an interesting solution.I can think of maybe one of my friends who has heard of these things and is probably not particularly impressed but I expect the rest of you to be as fascinated as I am. Isn't the world such an interesting place ?
2 comments:
So you can just feed a calf a metal rod and it will swallow it?! That's crazy. And then said rod just pulls the other metal things it's way without tearing or damaging organs in the process? Weird stuff. That is a bizarre solution!
My dad was dairy farmer for like a gazillion years so this is not news to me. :) But I am glad it was to you.
I kinda want to send you a forward with a question about if I can come through the express lane with cigarettes. :)
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