Cow Tipping is a Myth

Faeton writes "It's the kind of story you hear from a friend of a friend -- how, after a long night in a rural hostelry and at a loss for entertainment in the countryside, they head out into a nearby field. There, according to the second-hand accounts, they sneak up on an unsuspecting cow and turn the poor animal hoof over udder. But now, much to the relief of dairy herds, the sport of cow-tipping has been debunked as an urban, or perhaps rural, myth by scientists at a Canadian university. "

Comments

Never underestimate the power of Nandrolone...

[TripMaster Monkey]

From TFA:

Ms Boechler, now a trainee forensics analyst for the Royal Canadian Mounted Corps, concluded in her initial report that a cow standing with its legs straight would require five people to exert the required force to bowl it over.

Five normal people, perhaps...or perhaps just one college football jock, hopped up on steriods and Jagermeister...

(Before the naysayers start yammering about the misconceptions of steroid use, let me relate a personal experience of mine. Back in my college days, I watched my football jock roommate (an avowed Nandralone user) put his shoulder through the dorm room wall (concrete block), during a Jager bender. I doubt a mere cow would have had much of a chance against this guy.)

The real truth.

[Anonymous Coward]

As someone from bible belt heartland america, we have a few dairy cows. And I personally have been a party to cow tipping, and it is completely possible, and 4 of us did it.

So tell me how that's impossible again?

Re:uhm...duh!!!

[DaoudaW]

First off, cows sleep laying down. I lived on a dairy for 15 years and had to wake them up.
I was born and raised on a dairy farm and had my own small herd by the time I was in high school. Of course cows sleep laying down, but if you had to wake them up you were getting up too early! ;-)

So, if the cow is standing, it is awake.
Good call.

Next, a good sized dairy cow weighs in at over 1000 lbs.
Actually that would be quite a small cow like a Jersey or a Guernsey. A typical Holstein would be more in the 1500 pound range.

Standing, feet average width apart -- you, scrawny programmer boy (or me, an almost athetic 200 lbs) aint just gonna nock the thing over. Head start or no.
Of course not. The whole idea of dispelling the myth scientifically is one of the more ridiculous things I've ever heard of. It's a total joke and always has been.

Now just to confuse all you city slickers, there is a technique called "throwing" which is commonly used on farms and which is used in the rodeo event of bulldogging. Essentially the idea is to twist the head at the same time as you throw the animal off balance with your hip. I've personally thrown calves up to about 900 pounds, but in my experience it takes two men with a rope to throw a full-sized cow.

Re:Center of mass?

[cgenman]

It gets worse. Notice how the diagram assumes that the fulcrum of the cow is the opposite leg? This assumes a 100% rigid body cow. How rigid is a cow if it isn't expecting to be knocked over? If the cow's legs provided full vertical support but no angular rigity, a slight breeze would blow that parallelogram over.

In essence, they've shown the theoretical maximum force required to tip a cow.

And, of course, she doesn't try to tip any cows herself. It seems a bit irresponsible to prove that it can't be done mathematically, without checking your work yourself.

Not necessarily relevant to the findings of the article, but notice in the diagram where the center of mass is located?