Comments on: Hole-y Cow

By: Prabhashini

Prabhashini — Mon, 05 Mar 2012 07:32:57 +0000

The practical is better, but you want to take a control methods to reduce the pain & fear of the animal that you used for that practicle

By: hilendar

hilendar — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 01:04:43 +0000

You can see this on TV. On an episode of Discovery Channel’s Dirty Jobs show, the host, Mike Rowe, visits the University of Arkansas where they have a Jersey cow with a fistula. They even put a camera inside to watch the digestion!

By: IAMLEGEND

IAMLEGEND — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 15:14:48 +0000

They have been doing this for a long time at Mississippi State University. I remember going on a field trip in kindegarten and sticking my hand in one of these cows at MSU.

By: robbmyers

robbmyers — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 06:45:22 +0000

Up here in Fairbanks, we have a research at the university that studies musk oxen. They have a musk ox with a fistula. From what I understand, it’s not really any different from the ones for cows. They just have to be a little more careful when taking samples. They say that the musk oxen are, shall we say, “semi-domesticated.”

By: enar

enar — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 11:45:07 +0000

it was good.. through fistulation, man can improve the livestock production. i hope Central Luzon State University vetmed students headed by Maam Darlene Fe Castro can perform that too.. it will be a great experiment by batch teratogens.. Ahehehe. Go CLSU vets,,

By: CassandraJ

CassandraJ — Mon, 01 Sep 2008 13:13:24 +0000

I remember my grade 5 teacher telling me about the guys with the hole in his stomach and to this day I still kinda have nightmares about it.

Not saying it’s wrong to do but it just makes me cringe.

By: a1c

a1c — Sun, 10 Aug 2008 00:37:57 +0000

I can also confirm the fistula cow/s at University of California at Davis AKA Berkeley w/ Cows.

By: GregDDC

GregDDC — Fri, 19 Jan 2007 22:30:08 +0000

Heh, foul-smelling jets of bovine stomache acid 20 feet. I gotta see this slide!

By: Cathryn

Cathryn — Sat, 30 Dec 2006 19:37:49 +0000

By: Alan Bellows

Alan Bellows — Thu, 21 Dec 2006 23:59:43 +0000

I received this comment by e-mail some time ago, but it went overlooked until today:

Not so many years ago when I was employed by the Shaklee Corporation I was given the title Manager, Agriculture Research. This typical example of corporate cynicism meant that I had to contend with the extravagantly outrageous claims made by distributors for many of the Shaklee products including the (in)famous Basic-H.

This formulation of synthetic surfactants and blue dye was positioned as organic, biodegradable etc., etc. As a consequence Basic-H was sold as a panacea for everything that ailed humans as well as poor uncomplaining livestock. One recipient of this Basic-H was beef and dairy cattle. Basic-H was claimed to improve the feed utilisation, increase milk production and so on.

Now I have never been a big supporter of the FDA but quite clearly in this instance the agency was correct. One cannot feed livestock 'things' that are not approved.

My 'job' was to sort out the wheat from the chaff of all the claims being made by distributors. I decided very early in my tenure to look into this Basic-H cattle feeding.

The official Shaklee Corporation was that this was not an authorised use but as was the case generally Shaklee did nothing to discourage such practices.

I recall visiting many Shaklee 'dairy and cattle' people with professors of renowned universities of agriculture research. One such visit was with Prof. Earle E. Bartley of KSU in Manhattan, KS.

Prof. Bartley was an expert on legume bloat. This is often "relieved" by puncturing a hole with a knife in between the ribs of a cow. For this reason I was mildly amused to read some of the comments concerning the surgical placement of fistulas.

In any event, Bartley had developed a polyethylene/polypropylene product which was extremely effective in reducing legume bloat and had received FDA approval for its use.

He used fistulated cattle in development of his product. There is no other way to assess the condition. Different cattle are susceptible to bloat to different extents and one such 'happy camper' - aptly named Puffy - was fed Basic-H.

When the plug over the fistula was removed from Puffy a jet of fluid 9-inches in diameter was thrown 20-feet. [I still have a color slide of Puffy exhibiting enhanced jet coherence].

This proved two things:

1. Puffy had been rightly named and 2. Basic-H did nothing for bloat.

Cheers,

W. Glenn Howells, Ph.D. www.berkeleychemical.com