Comments on: Can cows sense magnetism? The debate continues

By: Pewlpit

Pewlpit — Fri, 18 Nov 2011 02:54:00 +0000

It’s amazing that all those articles were written in 2008 and no one thought to speak to the men (and women) who know cows best.

I think that you solved the mystery ahecht, and so your revelation has been featured as the lead to this article at the Pewlpit.

By: tigast

tigast — Tue, 15 Nov 2011 23:24:00 +0000

It seems like a good idea to use a herd of cows with magnets as a control for a herd without.

I built my first rail gun using a cow magnet for a projectile. By the time i upped it to 12 stages
it had the power of a 9mm pistol round.

Love those cow magnets. How do they work?

By: Warren_Terra

Warren_Terra — Tue, 15 Nov 2011 06:50:00 +0000

See this link and more links within for more on random poetry by ruminant.

By: sam1148

sam1148 — Tue, 15 Nov 2011 05:35:00 +0000

I remember an art project.
You know those little cut up word with verbs, nouns, adjectives…used for ‘fridge magnets you could randomly assemble into a poem on the ‘fridge?

Someone used the same concept–painting the words on cows. So the cows would herd randomly and create a ‘cut up’ poem.

By: nunya

nunya — Tue, 15 Nov 2011 05:25:00 +0000

The only time cows ‘line’ up is when walking a path. and those paths are dictated by the landscape. In a field cows stand in a herd, not a line. They go wherever they see food/grass nearby.

By: sam1148

sam1148 — Tue, 15 Nov 2011 05:17:00 +0000

This is interesting also. Cows graze on farmland and often injest things like nails, metal in the grass.
A “Cow Magnet” is common in some farms. It’s fed–or inserted into the cow. To attract any iron or metal the cow might eat…nails, staples from feed bags, bailing wire from hay..etc..etc.
http://www.allmagnetics.com/device/cow.htm
http://www.adamsmagnetic.com/alnico_magnets/cow_magnets.php

By: sam1148

sam1148 — Tue, 15 Nov 2011 05:03:00 +0000

That’s most likely explanation. We had a small herd of cattle, and they would congregate in the winter/fall in the high sunlight areas..and in the summer would hunker down in high shade areas in the heat of the day.
The solar heat might help with their complicated digestion system.

Cow’s are not migratory–So, I doubt any magnetic navigation benefit would apply.

By: Romeo Vitelli

Romeo Vitelli — Tue, 15 Nov 2011 04:53:00 +0000

Udder nonsense.

By: Chrs

Chrs — Tue, 15 Nov 2011 04:07:00 +0000

Without any controls, this would be a survey with the influence of all these elements quite important, and largely obscuring any magnetic influence. In theory, though, it isn’t.

The big control of the study is the presence or absence of high-voltage power lines. That’s a very good equivalent of the “artificial magnetic field” that you’re talking about. They significantly alter local magnetic fields, and presuming that the authors chose a randomly-distributed orientation of power lines across grazing areas (I’d imagine this was verified), should work as an excellent control case.

By: Don

Don — Tue, 15 Nov 2011 03:08:00 +0000

Too many variables. Outdoor cattle could be orienting to wind, to topography, to the pattern of distribution of forage plants, to the sun or stars, or to the earth’s magnetic field, not to mention the nearest highway.

The right way to get at the question—can they sense magnetic fields or not?—would be to put them in an indoor, artificial magnetic field and then rotate the field 90 degrees at random times. Then any difference in their behavior could be attributed to their sensing a magnetic field, not some other variable.

By: pjcamp

pjcamp — Tue, 15 Nov 2011 02:24:00 +0000

Since a cow can only walk the direction she faces, shouldn’t we see a lot of north/south ruts out in the fields?

By: Maggie DiMarco‎‎

Maggie DiMarco‎‎ — Tue, 15 Nov 2011 01:03:00 +0000

@twitter-80656317:disqus Walking towards..

By: el dueno

el dueno — Tue, 15 Nov 2011 00:26:00 +0000

Farmers have known for years that cows tend to face into the wind. It has nothing to do with magnetism but comfort. They don’t want to be blown-over.

By: GlenBlank

GlenBlank — Tue, 15 Nov 2011 00:21:00 +0000

Why do the cows have belts on?

That's dazzle camouflage to fool packs of hunting ~~submarines~~ wolves.

By: Allen

Allen — Mon, 14 Nov 2011 23:40:00 +0000

Why do the cows have belts on?

By: Eark_the_Bunny

Eark_the_Bunny — Mon, 14 Nov 2011 22:10:00 +0000

Oh goody, magnetic cows. How many can you stick to the front of your refrigerator?

By: frogmarch

frogmarch — Mon, 14 Nov 2011 21:37:00 +0000

F*cking cattle– how do they work?

By: rabidpotatochip

rabidpotatochip — Mon, 14 Nov 2011 21:30:00 +0000

How else would they know which way to fly for winter?

By: irksome

irksome — Mon, 14 Nov 2011 21:06:00 +0000

Walking towards Drumnadrochit in Scotland one evening back in ’78, we encountered a herd of cows that had packed themselves into a corner of their pasture that led uphill to a fence.

The ones at the bottom kept saying “MOOOOVE”; we waited for the ones at the top to say “No ROOOOM”, to no avail. Didn’t check for magnetic pull tho’.

By: Warren_Terra

Warren_Terra — Mon, 14 Nov 2011 21:06:00 +0000

If indeed the magnet and its accumulated irritants acted as a compass, this would incline the cattle to maintain a given orientation longer than would otherwise be the case, but would not incline them to orient north-south.

By: Warren_Terra

Warren_Terra — Mon, 14 Nov 2011 21:05:00 +0000

What about daylight? Most of the cattle-ranching regions aren’t terribly close to the equator, so standing north-south at or near noon will minimize the surface area exposed to the sun, and could offer some shade to the face and eyes; alternately, could maximize sunlight to the face and eyes. And if the cattle wanted to maximize sunlight exposure in the chill morning air, they’d also face north-south then.

By: Philbert

Philbert — Mon, 14 Nov 2011 20:58:00 +0000

It’s an interesting observation that would warrant some study, but it wouldn’t explain this phenomenon for red and roe deer.

For the life of me, I can’t think of an evolutionary explanation of why it would benefit cows to align themselves with the magnetic field.

By: ahecht

ahecht — Mon, 14 Nov 2011 20:01:00 +0000

Quickly browsing through the articles, I didn't see it mentioned once that most domesticated cows have large magnets inserted into their stomachs to collected metallic debris that they might eat. It sounds quite plausible to me that cows might line up north-south to reduce irritation from the katamari-damacy-style ball of staples, nails, and barbed wire bits collected around the magnet.