Cows Poop

It's true!  Everybody poops!  Cows poop! I grew up in a small town in New Jersey (yes, they exist), and we didn't have industrial farming. We did have cows in the area, and this is what I think about when I think of cows: 

Sometimes I think of brown cows, too.
Enjoy this wallpaper from Fanpop

Small town folks sometimes talk about the scent of cow pooh in the air during their drive.  Heck, you can even find folks betting on when a cow will pooh because "it's for charity!" One of my senior class fundraisers was Cow Patty Bingo.  Oh yes, that's right.  Cow Patty Bingo.

Look at the crowds!! Minnesota fund raising at its finest.

Look at the crowd! The excitement! The joy of waiting for a cow to do its doodey so you can see if it went on your square. The lucky winner is the person whose square is plopped on. My high school increased the fun by using the football field so that folks could crowd into the stands and watch while eating hotdogs and drinking huge cups of soda.

MMmm... cow patties. There's nothing like the fresh scent of cow patties in the morning, especially when they smell like raffle money! Unless it's liquid manure. Oh yes, manure can be processed into a liquid and squirted all over a field. I discovered this fun fact during in 2007 during a weekend long motorcycle class over the July 4th weekend.

I rode a red Suzuki GZ250 for the class,
and then I bought a red GZ250 for riding on the streets. 

 It was a a hot, hot July weekend spent on black top with an engine between my thighs, and on Saturday morning of my Friday to Sunday class, this is what happened on the field next to the parking lot:

Doesn't spreading liquid manure look like fun? 

Now, liquid manure is disgusting, but hey, it's important, right?  After all, farm food needs nutrients. It sounds like a great way to recycle and reuse until a tanker of cow pooh flips.  Then you end up with your roadway turned into a smelly brown lake. I do not envy those emergency personnel. 

Aren't you glad you don't live in Lisle, NY?
(If you do live there, I'm so sorry you have to go through this.)

"Different animals make different kind of poop." (Taro Gomi's Everyone Poops).  The reality is that cows poop a lot. Per the EPA, one dairy cow creates as much waste as 20 to 40 people.  In February 2013, the USDA reported that 3% of US dairies produced over 50% of our milk. (USDA Farms, Land in Farms, and Livestock Operations 2012 Summary, I found the information on the Yale Environment 360 page).  The largest dairies have over 15,000 cows.

Elizbeth Grossman notes in Yale Environment 360 article that, "According to the EPA, a 2,000-cow dairy generates more than 240,000 pounds of manure daily or nearly 90 million pounds a year. The USDA estimates that the manure from 200 milking cows produces as much nitrogen as sewage from a community of 5,000 to 10,000 people." 

When I was 16 years old the population in the town I grew up in was only about 7,500 people. As of the 2014 census, the town still hadn't reached 8,000 residents. 200 cows produce as much or more nitrogen per day then every single person in my hometown makes.

Cows poop impacts the quality of our water, earth, and air.   Farm animals also use massive amounts of water.  Dairy cows clean water needs vary from 40 to 50 gallons of water per day, even while they exponentially increase the production of sewage while contributing to the pollution of our waterways.

I was vegetarian for 13 years, but I started eating meat again ten years ago. I don't cook any meat in my home, but I do eat meat out sometimes.  I'm beginning to question the decision to return to meat and wonder if I should return to vegetarianism. 

I completely stole this blog title from that famous children's books:

Everybody Poops (even cows)

Don't forget - Everybody Poops!