Don't Have a Cow (literally)

I was doing my normal stroll home after school yesterday. I was feeling good about the day, watching the sun set over the hills when I was stopped by one of the groundskeepers who pointed behind some bushes to show me something. Of course I was intrigued and strolled around to check it out. Of to my surprise, I cruise around the corner to find a man with about 3/4s of his bare arm inside the rear of a cow. I know what you’re thinking, so what, I’ve seen Mike Rowe on dirty jobs do this a million times. I promise you, seeing it in real person and without any sort of glove makes things different. I do have to be fair to the guy and say that he did take the precautionary measure of taking off his shirt before starting his adventure. So me and the other groundskeepers end up spending the next 30 minutes watching this guy pull a calf from this mother cow. After all was said and done, I would guess that it looked like someone had been slimed at least 10 times on Family Double Dare. I’m not sure but that might have been a life changing experience. Oh also for those that are counting, this makes it school number two that I have been at that has cows.

So while we are on the topic of cows, let me share with you some devilish little facts about cows. Cows can be monster producers of greenhouse gasses. I use the words “can be” because if they are grass fed and graze in a pasture the amount of greenhouse gasses are cut down tremendously. You might be asking yourself, well why? And are my cows grass fed? Cows that are raised in factory farms are corn fed. Cows cannot digest corn so they are pumped full of all sorts of chemicals to be able to digest corn. If you were wondering if the cows you eat are raised in a factory farm then they probably are. 98% of livestock is raised in factory farms. Another fun fact about cows is that while they are in these factory farms they pick up all sorts of nasty diseases that can be transferred to you and me like salmonella and e-coli. Cows are kind of cool animals though. If they go from the factory farm and graze in a grass pasture for just five days, they clean themselves of all harmful bacteria. Do you think factory farmers do this? Nah, it’s cheaper for them to slaughter the cows and send the meat off to nice old ammonia baths to clean them.