9 ms·
Cow Magnets
- pfdietz 3y agoI assume they're recovered, cleaned and sterilized, and offered for sale after slaughter.
- rottencupcakes 3y agohttps://www.ebay.com/itm/295122032671 https://www.ebay.com/itm/295122032671 For your enjoyment.
- neilv 3y agoI'm happy to say that the cow magnets I saw as a kid were more shiny, and (I hope) not used.
- DaiPlusPlus 3y agoI’m getting flashbacks to “drop & run”
- bap 3y agoMy father owned a rural feed store until I was 6 or 7 years old (the early 80's.) Other than incubators full of chicks and ducklings, and bottle feeding young livestock fresh from auction - swiping cow magnets off the shelf to play with was a favorite pass-time. :) In those days I can't imagine anyone really cared what happened to the magnets after they went into the cow. Perhaps something happens in the slaughter house to clear out whatever has gotten into the gut and stomachs - for the sake of meat grinding machinery?
- HeyLaughingBoy 3y agoI think tripe is the only use an industrial abattoir would have for the stomach and that's likely to be handled by a human. My guess is that they have a bucket or something that they put foreign material into. Hmmm, but I wasn't thinking of pet food: that would probably be ground.
- pfdietz 3y agoI mean, you don't want the magnets, or any nails or what not they've picked up, to go into any separated products. And separating them from the guts shouldn't be too hard -- they'd be attracted to metal, after all. The question would be how rapidly they degrade.
- kokanator 3y agoMy father worked in a slaughterhouse. The magnets were often recovered in the gut room ( the place where they process guts and hides for the rendering house ). As a result I had/have a pile of these magnets. They actually come in several different forms. I had a few that were covered with some type of plastic and a few others that simply looked like the rough magnets you might find on the back of a fridge magnet just larger. My guess is the farmer would use whatever was actually cheap and available regardless of whether they were "cow magnets".
- Wistar 3y agoI lived in a rural area growing up and it was not uncommon to come across the cow magnets in fields, sides-of-road, and so on. I think I still have a couple of them stowed away somewhere in my pack-ratty shelves. I recall that they were not very strong magnets.
- zikduruqe 3y agoI used to play with them like Rattle Magnets. https://www.poundfun.com/cdn/shop/files/RattleMagnets.png?v=1690452035 https://www.poundfun.com/cdn/shop/files/RattleMagnets.png?v=... They weren't as fun, but same principle.
- rlonstein 3y agoA great-uncle had a dairy farm. We played with the magnets too.
- ortusdux 3y agoMy local co-op had them as impulse items at the checkstand. I seem to remember them costing as much as a candy bar, and my parents giving in and getting me a few. IIRC, they were slightly stronger than ceramic magnets, and much less brittle.
- lardo 3y agoSome of my fondest childhood memories are summer visits to my great uncles farm. Playing with a cow magnet in the dirt under the bench grinder in the tractor barn is one of them. I remember them being strong, but I was 10.
- 542458 3y ago> I recall that they were not very strong magnets. I have one on my desk right now, and it’s pretty strong! They’re historically made from Alnico alloys, which were the strongest type of permanent magnet until rare earth magnets were discovered.
- ethbr1 3y agoHuman healthcare would be much more affordable if it operated on the veterinary model. 'Nails cause problems when they pass through a bovine digestive tract.' 'Well, let's keep them from passing by feeding cows a magnet.' Problem practically solved.
- naikrovek 3y ago“Cancer treatment is expensive.” “Kill the patient” Problem practically solved? Much more affordable, sure, but not better in any other measure.
- ethbr1 3y agoVets don't put down animals needlessly, but they do practice medicine closer to engineering. There's always a cost-benefit calculation, and the answer should never be 'Whatever the cost.'
- naikrovek 3y ago> There's always a cost-benefit calculation, and the answer should never be 'Whatever the cost.' You think like an insurance company: completely detached from reality.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- dgacmu 3y agoNo, there literally is always a tradeoff, even in human medicine. I was at my doctor's office yesterday because I'm an idiot and injured myself. I asked about the diagnostic advantages of getting an MRI vs an x-ray for the injury (sciatic pain, probably from an injury to my piriformis; don't snowboard on the east coast). The MRI might have provided better diagnostics, but the x-ray (much faster, at lower cost, but at some radiation exposure to me) ruled out the really serious stuff, and the treatment plan was the same regardless. So: Tradeoff. It was, IMO, both financially and ethically better to use the low-resource diagnostic modality instead of tying up the rare and expensive one, even though it gave me a bit of radiation that in an ideal case I wouldn't have had.
- deanresin 3y agoI now know what a cow magnet is.
- praptak 3y agoDisappointingly, it's not a magnet that attracts cows.
- aidenn0 3y agoI've tried so hard to not make a joke about magnets fed to baby chickens, but you pushed me over the edge.
- drpixie 3y agoIn Australia, a "chick magnet" is a large attention seeking car owned by a young guy. It is intended to attract girls (chicks). It always has a serious stereo, and probably has a modified exhaust. Young guys spend a fortune on their "chick magnet", presumably to indicate that they could spend a fortune on potential girlfriends. The desired outcome often fails to eventuate - many "chick magnets" are only driven up and down the main street occupied by the single owner and his single friends ;)
- aidenn0 3y agoIn the US a "chick magnet" usually refers to a person who can attract women, but it can also refer to an accessory (including a car) with such a desired purpose.
- extraduder_ire 3y agoOn a somewhat related note, the process performed to separate hatchlings into roosters and pullets is called chick sexing.
- ec109685 3y agoAs well as hardware disease.
- plowjockey 3y agoWhile we had vets put magnets down cows over the years, my parents were too frugal to let me have one! There are two primary ways steel gets into the feed supply. A silage chopper can pick it up and cut it into fine bits or a hay baler picks up a stray end of wire and running large bales into a tub grinder to more easily mix feed stocks into a total mixed ration will chop the stray wire (and other parts) into moderately short bits. Many feed wagons have strong magnets under the discharge chute and grinder/mixers (used to grind grain and supplements) have likewise strong magnets just before the material enters the hammer mill. Despite that some bits will slip by due to the volume of material passing over the magnets as it comes out of the feed wagon. We do have the vets administer magnets to the heifers we keep at around 9 months of age. One has to watch to be sure they don't work them back up and spit them out! A couple of years ago we had some that did that. Symptoms of hardware is usually a cow "off feed" meaning she is not coming to the bunk to eat with the rest but usually stands apart and in acute cases will become hunched back. A veterinarian can usually diagnose it with a stethoscope as I think the breathing becomes labored in more acute cases.
- DaiPlusPlus 3y ago> my parents were too frugal to let me have one! Your parents wouldn’t let you swallow neodymium magnets?
- 0xdeadbeefbabe 3y agoFrugality first safety second
- throw_a_grenade 3y agoNow that you have come of age, you can proceed to ingest the damn magnet. Free yourself from the chains (sic) of the patriarchate!
- 01HNNWZ0MV43FF 3y agoHonestly it looks fun
- saagarjha 3y ago
- unwind 3y agoI guess I still can't read, because I couldn't find the link to their actual products, they are a magnet vendor after all. Very confusing. I had to search for it, but [1] must be linked to somewhere in the article, right? [1]: https://www.stanfordmagnets.com/alnico-cow-magnets.html https://www.stanfordmagnets.com/alnico-cow-magnets.html
- blowski 3y agoI don’t imagine it’s an industry that sees much opportunity in converting impulse buyers.
- wpietri 3y agoI learned about these accidentally last year and thought they were hilarious, so I bought some here: https://www.magnetsource.com/collections/cow-magnets-ru-master-5 https://www.magnetsource.com/collections/cow-magnets-ru-mast... I'm neither a veterinarian nor a cow, so I don't know how fit for purpose they are, but to me they seem well made.
- mhuffman 3y agoCow magnets are great refrigerator magnets! Very cheap, can be used at different angles, and stronger than pretty much any other refrigerator magnet.
- mgerdts 3y agoA few decades back I fabricated and wired industrial controls. While wiring, we used cow magnets to attach the blueprints to the open cabinet doors so that they were always within sight was we strung wires between PLCs, terminal blocks, relays, buttons, etc. Even when there were several pages of blueprint stapled together a few cow magnets tended to hold them in place. You just had to be sure to orient them such that they didn’t roll down the door.
- aidenn0 3y agoThe magnets designed for glass whiteboards are arguably too powerful for working as a refrigerator magnet. I was able to pin a 100 page paperback book to the fridge with one of these[1]. For fridges I recommend these[2], which are $8-15 for a ten-pack and plenty strong (plus the shape makes them easy to grab). 1: https://amazingmagnets.com/product-category/large-pawn-magnets/?orderby= https://amazingmagnets.com/product-category/large-pawn-magne... 2: https://amazingmagnets.com/product-category/WB-Series-Whiteboard-Magnets/?orderby= https://amazingmagnets.com/product-category/WB-Series-Whiteb...
- djmips 3y agoI feel like in an argumentive mood. I like very strong fridge magnets. They can hold thicker items.
- hoseja 3y agoWhy do you want to affix thick articles to your fridge door.
- aidenn0 3y agoOh, I have a few for just such a reason. I just don't want to unconditionally recommend them to someone without also saying that they are probably overkill. I also use male-threaded magnets and wingnuts to hold my cable-management pegboard to the bottom of my desk. There I went extra strong because I don't expect them to ever be moved.
- pierrec 3y ago"Cow magnets cannot be passed through a cow’s 4th bonivial meta-colon" Hah, "bonivial meta-colon" does not even resemble any real combination of words. Sure, cows have multiple stomachs, but come on. Now I'm wondering how many joke sentences are mixed in. And I almost believed the bonivial meta-colon because "Stanford" is in the domain name :)
- wzdd 3y agoApparently it’s been there for a while: the Wikipedia talk page for this topic has someone pointing this out in 2009.
- dang 3y agoRelated: Cow Magnets - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10176652 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10176652 - Sept 2015 (71 comments)
- gumby 3y agoAdminister no more than an odd number less than 2!
- inasio 3y agoOur local hackspace occasionally gets donations from Amazon, often very random things. One time we got a box full of these cow magnets. They're pretty strong, have mostly been used as fridge magnets though
- Bob_LaBLahh 3y agoI wonder if there is any correlation between cattle containing cow magnets and the strange phenomena of cattle tending to align themselves on a north/south axis. I'm guessing that the answer is "not much" since deer lineup too and they (probably) don't have magnets in their stomachs. I still think this deserves the Mythbusters treatment, right? https://www.npr.org/2009/03/16/101945271/power-lines-upset-cows-compass https://www.npr.org/2009/03/16/101945271/power-lines-upset-c...
- AnotherGoodName 3y agoI wonder if it's as simple as wanting to catch the most sun hence a north south orientation to expose the flanks and the shadows from high voltage towers interfere with this hence the difference under those towers.
- RoyalHenOil 3y agoThis sounds like the likely explanation. Crop rows and greenhouses are generally aligned North-South for the same reason: to maximize direct sun exposure.
- flysand7 3y agoI found the relevant research: https://www.pnas.org/doi/pdf/10.1073/pnas.0803650105 https://www.pnas.org/doi/pdf/10.1073/pnas.0803650105 > Furthermore, there was no correlation between the position of roe deer and the time of day when the observation took place, meaning that the position of the sun had no influence on deer orientation. Although I'm not sure how credible this information is given that they studied google images where who knows what time of day they are taking images at. Maybe there was a correlation.
- Bob_LaBLahh 3y agoThank you! My curious but busy/lazy ass wanted to know the answer but wasn't gonna do the legwork.
- d1sxeyes 3y ago
- connectsnk 3y agoAm I the only one who is thinking that cows must feel terrible their whole lives.
- ornornor 3y agoThat’s one of the reasons why many of us refuse to eat them (or any other animal)
- saagarjha 3y agoBy eating them you shorten the length of time they stay miserable.
- caditinpiscinam 3y ago"a most delicious, nourishing, and wholesome food"
- albrewer 3y agoBy eating them you contribute to the overall demand for new beef, thereby perpetuating the cycle of bovine misery.
- cryptonector 3y agoHumans are carnivores. Like felines, canines, etc. But it is tough, yes, to be a carnivore when these animals are so lovable and loving. As a beekeeper it's hard to to steal my bees' honey. But... I still do it.
- ornornor 3y agoDoesn’t have to be this way though. We’re not obligate carnivores, you can eat no animal product for decades and be just fine.
- cryptonector 3y agoI don't think this is true. I mean, yes, we can not eat meat, but I don't believe that not eating animal protein produces equivalent results to eating animal protein.
- cwillu 3y agoThis is why cow tools aren't made of metal.
- kazinator 3y agoMaybe we've been wrong all along about toddlers swallowing magnets? ;)
- rzzzt 3y agoUnfortunately not, some arrangements can pinch together sections of the gut as they pass through and that's a very big problem. No reticulum in toddlers. Rumination is preserved for thoughts only when they get bigger.
- BrandonMarc 3y ago... and for that kind of rumination, we have therapists to help out.
- deepspace 3y agoSpecifically, swallowing ONE magnet is probably fine, since children do not tend to eat metal frequently. Swallowing multiple strong magnets brings the risk of pinching (and necrotizing) sections of the gut.
- repiret 3y agoIncidentally, you often put magnets in a hydraulic sump for much the same reason.
- userbinator 3y agoThat's what this reminded me of too. Very common to have one in the oil pan, transmission pan, and rear axle, often built into the drain plug, to catch metal debris.
- block_dagger 3y agoHow we treat these animals is horrific. We force feed them magnets to counteract the effects of our domination over them.
- eitland 3y agoThe thing is cows eat metal while grazing freely too. I have a background in farming and there has been cases of cows ingesting rather weird things absolutely on their own. One case I remember hearing about was a cow eating a pack of leftover bolts from construction teams.
- block_dagger 3y agoPart of the domination I speak of is the pollution of hardware we carelessly leave for other species to suffer from.
- bsza 3y agoHow we treat these animals is a blessing compared to how Mother Nature would treat them. We protect them from parasites, bacterial infections, malnutrition, rabies, predators, the weather, physical injuries and yes, ingesting things they’re not supposed to.
- 6bb32646d83d 3y agoI don't know. I feel like a cow without humans is most likely to end up being slowly tear apart by a predator
- destitude 3y agoThis isn't just about the feed. I once saw the remains of some cattle that got hit by a train and was dumbfounded by the amount of trash they had eaten. You'd be surprised by what they will eat and if the farm is pretty "trashy" that ends up in the cattle as well.
- plowjockey 3y agoThey are very curious. As they can't just pick something up to examine it, they do the next thing which is to sniff it and then taste it. At that point it's on a one way trip down the gullet! Other times they try to eat things they shouldn't like "hedge apples" which are the "fruit" of Osage Orange, a.k.a. hedge trees. These apples will start falling to the ground during late summer and early fall and for whatever reason cattle like to eat them. After they lay for a while they get mushy and there is usually no problem but early on they're hard and can get lodged on the way down or on the way back up when they chew their cud. Usually it takes a stiff hose to clear the blockage and after a day or so things are fine.
- notfed 3y agoIsn't this dangerous? I'm imagining guts getting punched between a magnet and some metal...
- deepspace 3y agoI was thinking that as well, but I think the shape of the magnets have something to do with it. For human children, swallowing a single magnet is a nuisance, but swallowing more than one is a medical emergency, for exactly that reason.
- djmips 3y agoMore than one with some (unknown to me) period between. If swallowed one after the other, I presume they would just stick together without much issue.
- waterhouse 3y agoAn implication is that, of the metallic debris a cow might ingest, a large fraction of it is magnetizable—otherwise there'd be little point. I wonder, does this feed back into the decisions that are made? Do people deliberately choose magnetizable metals for things that might get broken up in a cow's environment?
- el_snark 3y agoThis is incidentally why cows can't travel on planes. They always get stopped at the body scanner.
- onemoresoop 3y agoThey don't fit through or they can't raise their hands up?
- nicbou 3y agoThis is an unnecessarily verbose way of saying "cows eat random things including metal bits that can kill them, so we have them eat a magnet to catch them". Then again, it's content marketing. It's written for search engines, not humans.
- screamingninja 3y ago> unnecessarily verbose way What are you referring to? I just see two words in the title: "Cow Magnets"
- nicbou 3y agoI refer to the article's contents
- Zebfross 3y agoI had a pair of these growing up, and they're super fun to play with. They have great interactions and make interesting sounds.
- dreamcompiler 3y agoDad sold veterinary supplies. We had lots of these to play with. They were the strongest magnets around before modern rare earth magnets came along. Sometimes we used them to clamp steel pieces together prior to welding etc. Lots of uses.
- denton-scratch 3y agoI live by The Thames; for the last few days, we've had magnet fishers on the bank. I gather this crew have fished up a cannon and a sawn-off shotgun, as well as stuff like jewelry. I'm not going to link to them (Facebook <spit>), but you can search for "Northants magnet fishers". They all seem to use the same magnets, which look as if they're about 3" diameter, 2" tall cylinders. It seems to require a fair bit of muscle to separate the dredged iron from the magnet. I don't know where they get these magnets.
- zeristor 3y agoWhat happens after the cow is slaughtered, tripe is made from cow stomachs, I am now sure which one. But if this is standard there must be lots of the pseudo-bezoars. Are they cleaned up, dissolved in acid, have the accumulated lots of bits of wire and nails? Mention was made of processing silage, ferrous objects could be removed at that stage.
- classified 3y agoHardware disease, who knew! But I know plenty of programmers with software disease.
- specialist 3y agoMid 2000s, I played with combining RFID tags w/ cow magnets. (A relative had a cow magnet side hustle and asked for my input.) At the time, one livestoct mgmt strategy was to add tags to ears. Then add readers to the thresholds cows move thru. Alas, a semi common failure mode is sometimes those ear tags get ripped out. So some cows don't get tracked. Apart from the challenges of using RFID (eg cost, range, interference), any new tag would require support by the livestock mgmt stack. Vendor lock-in and all that. Or create our stack. Which I was not inclined to do.