The Cry Baby is on sabbatical ....

Saturday, March 12, 2011

Odd: Cows have magnets in their stomachs


A picture of a Hereford bull. Taken by the US ...Image via Wikipedia
This is one of those strange facts ..... farmers feed cows magnets. There is logic in this magnetic delicacy. When cows graze they end up eating a lot of different junk, including metal objects, such as nails. These can obviously damage the cow internally.  The magnets attract the metal objects and keep them from moving further. Stranglely, no mention of how the magnets and objects make it out of the cow. Maybe they are there for life. Here is a better explanation from ehow.com:

"When a cow grazes in a field, she often eats more than just grass. Cows can also accidentally eat metal objects such as nails, wire or staples. To stop this, a cow magnet is fed to a cow and travels to her first stomach (cows have four digestive compartments that are generally considered four stomachs) to stop her from digesting the metal. The magnet will settle in a cow's reticulum or rumen portion of her stomach, so if a cow eats any metal, it is attracted to the magnet and does not go any further."

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