tagged w/ Cow Videos & Cow News
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For farmers, this stinks: Belching and gaseous cows and hogs could start costing them money if a federal proposal to charge fees for air-polluting animals becomes law.
Farmers so far are turning their noses up at the notion, which is one of several put forward by the Environmental Protection Agency after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2007 that greenhouse gases emitted by belching and flatulence amounts to air pollution.
"This is one of the most ridiculous things the federal government has tried to do," said Alabama Agriculture Commissioner Ron Sparks, an outspoken opponent of the proposal.
It would require farms or ranches with more than 25 dairy cows, 50 beef cattle or 200 hogs to pay an annual fee of about $175 for each dairy cow, $87.50 per head of beef cattle and $20 for each hog.
I think this is a very good idea but I also know that I am in a minority here because I am a vegetarian and I think we should stop killing cows for food. If we stop eating them, then we wouldn't have to keep them, feed them crap which eventually goes into our body and juice them up with steroids (I wonder how much that costs). So basically because we eat cows, it's destroying our environment, costing a lot of money, and judging from the big burger you just got at McDonald's, not a healthy choice...For farmers, this stinks: Belching and gaseous cows and hogs could start costing them... more
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Resembling contestants from the cattle equivalent of Mr Universe, these absurdly built bovines certainly don’t cut a pretty picture. Affected by a genetic mutation, known medically as Muscular Hypertrophy, or double muscling, the freakishly-shaped cows are the result of cross breeding. About a century ago, a group of Belgian farmers thought it was a great idea to produce a breed of supercows, as you do. The eventual outcome of this breeding plan was the Belgian Blue breed, possibly the most intimidating looking herd in history.
animals, belgian blue, bodybuilding, double muscle, genetics, muscle, myostatin, weirdResembling contestants from the cattle equivalent of Mr Universe, these absurdly built... more
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The little, red, bloodless strips of flesh seem so innocuous. Layered, one on top of each other, with a little cress garnish on a spotless white plate, they are just a light snack. The most shocking thing is the price: at £10 a slice, they're expensive. But this Japanese dish, served up with soy sauce in the Tokuya restaurant in Osaka, is at the centre of one of the most extraordinary battles that has ever circled the globe. The right to eat this dish has sparked a power struggle that has pitched the world's richest nations one against another, catching in the cross-fire the Solomon Islands in the South Pacific, Dominica in the Caribbean and landlocked Mongolia in deepest Asia. The pursuit of this dish has lead to the ramming and sinking of boats, the making and breaking of global treaties, the buying of poor nations with offers of aid, and mass consumer boycotts.The violent debate that surrounds this dish spans the rights of animals and indigenous people, our relentless destruction of nature, our ignorance of the oceans, cultural imperialism and the very nature of intelligence and consciousness.
The dish is whale, minke whale, a little strip of raw flesh from the belly of an animal protected from commercial hunting by a moratorium that has survived 15 years. The dish is just a few ounces from one of the 500 minke whales, each weighing about 8 tonnes, that the Japanese government killed last year in the pursuit, it said, of 'scientific research'. Once they are weighed and measured, their location noted, the whales are chopped up, shipped back to Japan, and sold on the open market.
Minke is one of 13 species of great whale that are protected for reasons of conservation and politics. The species has also become the centre of a western mythology prompted by our awe at the creatures' size, intelligence, history and social habits. The blue whale, at up to 160 tonnes in weight and over 100 feet long, is the largest animal that has ever lived on earth yet feeds mainly on the oceans' tiniest creatures. The humpback whale leaping clear above the waves is not just one of nature's most awesome sights, but the propelling of its 30 tonne body more than 50 feet in the air is the most powerful single action any animal performs.
Whales migrate around the earth in family groups, communicating across a thousand miles of ocean with songs, unique to each individual, that vary and develop from season to season. The sperm whale can hold its breath for two hours, longer than any other mammal, as it dives vertically down to 10,000 feet below the surface to dine on giant squid, an animal that lives so deep and swims so fast that humans, with all our technology, are simply incapable of catching.
(More at source.)
And some in Japan think whales are no more intelligent than cows. The little, red, bloodless strips of flesh seem so innocuous. Layered, one on top of... more
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A newspaper in Uruguay reported that 52 cows died in a lightening storm when they pressed themselves up to a wire fence. Cows often crowd around fences in bad weather - these ones were just unlucky.A newspaper in Uruguay reported that 52 cows died in a lightening storm when they... more
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Villagers from Julah in Tejakula, Buleleng, tow a pregnant cow behind a boat into open sea as part of a local traditional ritual.
The cow, which is five months pregnant, was thrown out to the sea about 3 kilometers from land Monday. The villagers believe the animal was impregnated by a village elder.
During the ritual the man, who was caught red-handed having sexual intercourse with the cow two months ago, joined the boat trip in order to throw away his clothes to to symbolize him discarding his sins.
Julah customary village head Ketut Sidemen said the ritual, called gamya gamana, or freak weeding, and had been conducted there for generations. The decision to perform the ritual was made a local residents meeting.
In line with customary regulations, the perpetrator, identified only as PS, 70, was sanctioned to fund the expensive ceremony, which aimed to cleanse him of any bad influences.
Luh Ketut Suryani, a professor and activist, deplored the sancation against PS.
She said drowning a cow was baseless because sexual intercourse between a human being and am animal could not cause pregnancy due to the different chromosomes and genes of the two.
"The cow is not guilty, why should it be drowned? Why don't just use a symbol like what was done by the perpetrator?" she said.
Suryani's said she was concerned dealt with the financial situation of the owner, who lives below the poverty line.
"The cow, which has a high price, had to be thrown away. It will be a pity for the owner, who is already poor and is now forced to lose his priceless belonging."Villagers from Julah in Tejakula, Buleleng, tow a pregnant cow behind a boat into open... more
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These poor cows were in the wrong place at the wrong time. I wonder why so many of them were stood against the fence in the first place?These poor cows were in the wrong place at the wrong time. I wonder why so many of... more
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MONTEVIDEO, Uruguay – Lightning struck only once — but 52 cows are dead at an Uruguayan ranch. The newspaper El Pais reports that the cows had pressed against a wire fence during a storm when the lightning bolt struck in the northern state of San Jose.
A photograph released by the San Jose Police Department shows the black and brown cows lying dead in a long row.
The newspaper said Friday that veterinarians at the scene confirmed the cause of the deaths, which happened Wednesday. The veterinarians told the newspaper that cows often crowd around fences to seek protection during storms.
Meteorologist Fernando Torena told the newspaper he wasn't surprised that a single lightning bolt killed so many cows. But he called it "very bad luck."
MONTEVIDEO, Uruguay – Lightning struck only once — but 52 cows are dead at... more
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The best flying cow sequence since Twister!
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An Ohio woman has been arrested after she went on a drunken rampage wearing a full body cow-suit, when she was supposed to be advertising a local theme park.
Reports claim that Michelle Allen was chasing children, threatening police and even urinated on a nearby garden before being arrested.
That's a pretty weird chain of events right there, but it gets so much better, when she was taken to court she'd clearly become at one with her new bovine exterior, because she started challenging people of the court to "suck her udders."
Just a bad day at the office... right?An Ohio woman has been arrested after she went on a drunken rampage wearing a full... more
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Mooove over, Holsteins. PETA wants world-famous Ben & Jerry's Homemade Ice Cream to tap nursing moms, rather than cows, for the milk used in its ice cream.
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals is asking the ice cream maker to begin using breast milk in its products instead of cow's milk, saying it would reduce the suffering of cows and calves and give ice cream lovers a healthier product.
The idea got a cool reception Thursday from Ben & Jerry's officials, the company's customers and even La Leche League International, the world's oldest breast-feeding support organization, which promotes the practice — for babies, anyway.
PETA wrote a letter to company founders Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield on Tuesday, telling them cow's milk is hazardous and that milking them is cruel.
"If Ben and Jerry's replaced the cow's milk in its ice cream with breast milk, your customers — and cows — would reap the benefits," wrote Tracy Reiman, executive vice president of the animal rights advocacy group. She said dairy products have been linked to juvenile diabetes, allergies and obesity.
Ashley Byrne, a campaign coordinator for PETA, acknowledged the implausibility of substituting breast milk for cow's milk, but said it's no stranger than humans consuming the milk of another species.
"We're aware this idea is somewhat absurd, and that putting it into practice is a stretch. At the time same, it's pretty absurd for us to be drinking the milk of cows," she said.
It takes about 12 pounds — or 1 1/2 gallons of milk — to make a gallon of ice cream. Ben & Jerry's, which gets its milk exclusively from Vermont cows, won't say how much milk it uses or how much ice cream it sells.
As a standardized product under federal regulations, ice cream must be made with milk from healthy cows. Ice cream made from goat's milk, for example, would have to be labeled as such.
Presumably, so would mother's milk ice cream.Mooove over, Holsteins. PETA wants world-famous Ben & Jerry's Homemade Ice... more
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Cows chasing Bears? hmm...
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Authorities are trying to determine who owns a runaway cow that was roped in Ho-Ho-Kus.
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Zoologists in Germany have studied 8,510 cattle in 308 herds around the world through Google Earth to come to the conclusion that, when at rest, they tend to orient themselves approximately North-South. Apparently nearly two out of every three cattle were oriented in this way. The researchers believe that this means the cows can tap into the earth's electromagnetic fields.
Though why they should do this still seems to be a mystery..
Zoologists in Germany have studied 8,510 cattle in 308 herds around the world through... more
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Well, we don't know if they like them, but they will eat them. And as the cost of grains and corn has gone up because of the interest in ethanol, feeding cattle strictly corn is too expensive, reports the Wall Street Journal. So farmers are now moving to alternatives such as m&m's and potato chips mixed in with their corn, frankly because its cheaper. Compared to some of the other things that ranchers can and do feed cattle, maybe its not such a bad thing.
Grass-fed cattle make up only 10% of the beef market, according to the report. The farmers have to charge 30% more for the beef because its more costly to raise the cattle, and they can't pack as many cattle onto the property because of resource limitations when cattle just roam and graze. Americans are used to the high-fat taste of corn-fed beef, which is another concern for grass-fed cattle farmers when they take their beef to market. Well, we don't know if they like them, but they will eat them. And as the cost of... more
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"Have you ever noticed that herds of grazing animals all face the same way?
Images from Google Earth have confirmed that cattle tend to align their bodies in a north-south direction.
Wild deer also display this behaviour - a phenomenon that has apparently gone unnoticed by herdsmen and hunters for thousands of years.
In the Proceedings for the National Academy of Sciences, scientists say the Earth's magnetic fields may influence the behaviour of these animals.
The Earth can be viewed as a huge magnet, with magnetic north and south situated close to the geographical poles.
Many species - including birds and salmon - are known to use the Earth's magnetic fields in migration, rather like a natural GPS.
A few studies have shown that some mammals - including bats - also use a "magnetic compass" to help their sense of direction.
Dr Sabine Begall, from the University of Duisburg-Essen, Germany, has mainly studied the magnetic sense of mole rats - African animals that live in underground tunnels.
"We were wondering if larger animals also have this magnetic sense," she told BBC News.
Deer (J Cerveny)
This sense may be quite widespread in the animal kingdom
Dr Begall and colleagues first decided to study the natural behaviour of domestic cattle.
The researchers surveyed Google Earth images of 8,510 grazing and resting cattle in 308 pasture plains across the globe.
"Sometimes it took hours and hours to find some pictures with good resolution," said Dr Begall.
The scientists were unable to distinguish between the head and rear of the cattle, but could tell that the animals tended to face either north or south.
Their study ruled out the possibility that the Sun position or wind direction were major influences on the orientation of the cattle.
Dr Begall said: "In Africa and South America, the cattle (were) shifted slightly to a more north-eastern-south-western direction.
Deer beds (J Cerveny)
Forest dormitory: Deer "beds" are seen in a line
"But it is known that the Earth's magnetic field is much weaker there," she explained.
The researchers also recorded the body positions of 2,974 wild deer in 277 locations across the Czech Republic.
Their fieldwork revealed that the majority of grazing and resting deer face northward. About one-third of the deer faced southward.
"That might be some kind of anti-predatory behaviour," speculated Dr Begall.
Willy Miller - a Scottish cattle farmer - remarked: "I've never noticed that my cows all face the same way."
Cows are social animals: "[They] all sit down before it rains [and] huddle together in a circle formation during blizzards. But from a cow's point of view, that's just sensible," he told BBC News.
Professor John Phillips, a sensory biologist from Virginia Tech University, US, commented that this sixth magnetic sense might be "virtually ubiquitous in the animal kingdom".
He added: "We need to think about some really fundamental things that this sensory ability provides in animals."
The challenge remains for scientists to explain how the animals behave in this way - and if Scottish cattle are the exception to the rule!"
"Have you ever noticed that herds of grazing animals all face the same way?... more
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If you're lost in the countryside without a compass, don't panic.
Just look for a herd of cows and see which way they are pointing.
After monitoring the behaviour of thousands of cattle, scientists have found that they tend to face north after aligning themselves with the Earth's magnetic field.
The astonishing ability appears to be a relic of the days when the wild ancestors of today's domesticated cattle used inbuilt compasses to find their way across the plains of Africa, Asia and Europe on long migrations.
The finding - based on satellite images of cattle all over the world - has astonished farmers and animal behaviourists.
Although cows are famed for their ability to forecast rain hours in advance, their talent for navigating has so far gone overlooked.
Dozens of species of animals use the Earth's magnetic field to navigate - including birds, turtles, termites and salmon.
The ability is also found in some mammals including rats and bats.
Animals are thought to use internal magnets - made of crystals of magnetite - to find their way around.
Homing pigeons, for instance, have a tiny blob of these crystals in their beaks.
Dr Sabine Begall and colleagues from the University of Duisburg-Essen used Google Earth to find images of cattle in worldwide locations including Britain, Ireland, India and the U.S.
They also directly observed almost 3,000 deer in the Czech Republic.
The deer tended to face north when either resting or grazing, and while the satellite images of the cattle were not detailed enough to show which way they were facing, their bodies were clearly aligned in a north-south direction.
This suggested that they were behaving in the same way as their close relatives, the deer.
Because the direction of the wind and sunlight varied hugely in the different locations, the scientists were able to rule out weather and the position of the sun as an explanation.
'We conclude that the magnetic field is the only common and most likely factor responsible for the observed alignment,' the researchers wrote in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Gywn Jones, who has kept dairy cattle for 25 years in West Sussex, confirmed: 'They know what weather to expect in advance.
'Beef cattle will head up to higher altitudes if the weather is going to good.
'My dairy cattle have their favourite fields where they go if it is going to be sunny.
'I let mine go in and out, and if it's going to be wet they head inside.
'In rough weather they like to have their backs to the wind. But I've not noticed a preference for facing north.' If you're lost in the countryside without a compass, don't panic.
Just... more
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Satellite images show that cattle tend to point north and south when grazing and resting.
Birds do it, bees do it, and so, apparently, do . . . cows?
No, it's not that. We're talking about sensing the Earth's magnetic field.
[more]Satellite images show that cattle tend to point north and south when grazing and... more
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WASHINGTON (AP) -- Talk about animal magnetism, cows seem to have a built-in compass. No bull: Somehow, cattle seem to know how to find north and south, say researchers who studied satellite photos of thousands of cows around the world.
Most cattle that were grazing or resting tended to align their bodies in a north-south direction, a team of German and Czech researchers reports in Tuesday's issue of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
And the finding held true regardless of what continent the cattle were on, according to the study led by Hynek Burda and Sabine Begall of the faculty of biology at the University of Duisburg-Essen in Germany.
"The magnetic field of the Earth has to be considered as a factor," the scientists said.
This challenges scientists to find out why and how these animals align to the magnetic field, Begall said in an interview via e-mail.
"Of course, the question arises whether humans show also such a spontaneous behavior," she said, adding, what "consequences does it have for their health."
The study sent Tina Hinchley, who with her husband Duane operates a dairy farm in Cambridge, Wis., to take a new look at an aerial photo taken of their farm a few years ago.
"The cows that were in the pasture were all over the place ... about two-thirds were north-south," Hinchley said.
Two-thirds is close to what the researchers found in their look at 8,510 cattle in 308 pastures. In the study, 60 percent to 70 percent of cattle were oriented north-south, which Begall termed a "highly significant deviation from random distribution."
Hinchley stressed that one factor that must be considered is cow comfort.
"They don't like to get hot. Their body temperature is 102, and they are wearing black leather jackets, literally! If turning north-south would keep them cooler, they would stand that way."
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Talk about animal magnetism, cows seem to have a built-in compass.... more
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ivxx
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added this
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4 years ago
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Critically-acclaimed, award-winning Meatrix movie - The Meatrix II: Revolting
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This is corporate PR. rBGH is one of the most hated products in the world. That's why Monsanto is dumping it. Why would Eli Lilly want to pick up rBGH? Because they are partners in crime with Monsanto and the biotech industry--pushing largely untested and unlabeled genetically engineered products on an unwilling, but often gullible public.
PRESS RELEASE
CONTACT:
(317) 277-7464 Joan Todd (Elanco)
(317) 276-5795 - Mark Taylor (Lilly)
Elanco Announces Acquisition of Posilac® Dairy Business
Deal Provides Strategic Fit with Lilly's Animal Health Division
Greenfield, IN - Elanco, a division of Eli Lilly and Company (NYSE:LLY), today announced that Lilly has signed an agreement to acquire the worldwide rights to the dairy cow supplement, Posilac® (sometribove), as well as the product's supporting operations, from Monsanto Company (NYSE:MON).
"Global dairy demand is increasing, outstripping supply, and consumers are seeing rapidly rising prices," said Jeff Simmons, president, Elanco. "With the purchase of Posilac, Elanco can enhance its overall product portfolio and work together with the industry to provide dairy farmers more options and give consumers affordable choices. Critically, we remain focused on the health and care of the cow in working with farmers to increase global milk supply.
"With our rich history and experience in the dairy industry, Elanco is the ideal steward of this vital technology," Simmons said. "Elanco remains committed to using science to address the growing need for safe, affordable food; and to choices for consumers, retailers and producers."
Elanco has exclusively sold sometribove outside of the United States for a decade. Posilac has been safely used for more than 14 years.
Under the terms of the agreement, Lilly will acquire all rights to the Posilac brand, as well as the product's U.S. sales force and its manufacturing facility in Augusta, Georgia. In return, Monsanto will receive a $300 million upfront payment, as well as contingent consideration. The Posilac dairy business manufacturing and sales teams will be integrated into the Elanco business. The transaction is expected to close near the beginning of the fourth quarter of 2008, contingent upon clearance under the Hart-Scott-Rodino Anti-Trust Improvements Act and other customary closing conditions. Lilly confirmed that the acquisition will not result in a change to the company's full-year 2008 financial guidance, as detailed in its second quarter 2008 financial results press release issued July 24, 2008.
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Same poison, different drug dealer. The fight is not over.This is corporate PR. rBGH is one of the most hated products in the world. That's... more
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