Reach in and touch the inner cow
As weird as this may sound, I mean literally reach in and touch the inside of the cow!
In case you didn’t know animals can live perfectly well with a permanent hole in their stomachs. Scientists call these surgically made holes, fistulas, which are covered by a canulla, a sort of cover from the outside world. They are used to test the digestibility of various cattle food, the cows are fed and as the food passes through her stomachs, scientist can just reach in and see how it is processed. As brutal as it might look, this doesn’t hurt the animals at all, it actually prolongs their life, in case of stomach disease, they can receive helping medicine directly in there.
The one thing I don’t approve of is people sticking their hand in animals just out of curiosity, like the kid in our photo. Sure it’s not something you’d call ordinary, but turning a medical procedure into a circus isn’t very ethical.
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Comments
Cows have only 1 stomach, but 4 parts to it: the rumen, the reticulum, the omasum, and the abomasum. Most of the digestion takes place in the biggest compartment, the rumen, which is where I’m assuming this hole goes to.
These are called cannulated cows. It doesn’t upset the cow and has provided us with so much information on the rumen digestive system. That said, a cow (ruminant) only has 1 stomach, with 4 compartments. Rumen, Reticulum, Abomasum, and Omasum. As for the kid, he might one day become the vet or scientist that cures bovine spongiform encephalitis (BSE) which is known to the rest of the world as mad cow disease.
Are you like retarded, putting a whole in an animal just so stupid fucks can stick their hands in it for ‘fun’? Saving loads of cows from sticking his hand in it? Maybe you should go smoke some more crack fucktard.
I think I’ve been there as a child. I remember being awestruck/grossed-out by the whole thing. It’s located on a Mississippi State University farm. Hence the shirts and hat.
Possibly a smart way to cut down on methaine emmissions. If the stomach is processing with ventalation, perhaps it is also producing less gas emmissions? Would this make these bovine environmentally friendly?
You can’t “save” cows by not eating meat. They are born with the purpose to provide meat and milk and even milk cows are eaten at the end of their life. If you want to save a cow you have to buy a cow. I bet you’d be thinking about making it into hamburger after you had to pay to feed it for a while. These animals eat like a…like a freaking COW!
Having said all that it’s not cool to be mean to animals or not provide them with proper care.
Dale
“As brutal as it might look, this doesn’t hurt the animals at all, it actually prolongs their life”
Not buying it.
Why not just make the cow throw up.. ?
this is so fucked up. how do people get away with this shit? animals should not have permanent hole in their stomachs.
In all fairness now. that kid might be….. un-ethical as you say. but so are you, blacks, chinks and americans. its said that kid is not nice, showing a bit of curiosity. well like pete said he could grow up to be a vet. and whats the deal with the insults by posting this crap here your promoting it as hella funny. now personally i think this is wrong, cows deserve the comfortable solitude my stomach can grant it. not some farm for studies….. HIPPIES!!!
I don’t see why people freak out over this. We eat steak right ? We wear leather? Unless you’re a vegan, you’ve got to place complaining about the treatment of animals which are more than likely battery farmed.
lol…. id drill a hole in my stomach… if it didnt hurt or spill out… then again… cows dont have to worry about pickn up chicks…. on a side note… for the right price i could get a chick to have sex with a cow.
Seen this before. Nothing wrong with it. And why not let the kid do that, it’s educational. No reason to be uptight about it.
This is just wrong on so many levels.. I’d rather live a few years shorter than having a big hole in my stomach.
you’d have serious problems if someone drilled into your stomach, the only reason it can be done on cows is because of the type of stomach they have….and it’s done not to save cows but generally used for research purposes….w
It’s unethical because we’re putting a hole where it’s not supposed to go and doing things to the animal that aren’t meant to happen to it. How would you like a hole in your stomach where people put things in and pull things out on a regular basis?
That’s why I love talking to animal rights activists, the conversation always stays at such a high level. Boy that fistula sure is creepy though.
I’m on the fence with this… It doesn’t hurt the cows and it actually promotes better health for them but at the same time tourist shouldn’t be able to just stick their hands in them outta curiosity either..
Awesome. It’s good for the cows. It’s good for the scientists. It’s good for the kids. Nothing wrong here. Just makes my hamburgers taste better.
“what kind of mental retard do you have to be? are those real cows??”
“what kind of mental retard”
“mental retard”
WTF, anon, you’re supposed to be smarter than feeling the need to specify mental.
You stupid tree hugging hippies. It it went for research on animals you all would of died a long time ago.
GO HUMANE ANIMAL REASEARCH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
My dad is a professor and researcher in forage (cow feed) development and I have had hands on experiences with these fistulated/cannulated cows. It doesn’t hurt the animal at all.
The holes are used to extract rumen fluid which is filled with digestive bacteria. Researchers use the fluid to figure out what feed mixtures are best digested for maximum energy utilization of the feed. With this type of research, they can determine what percentage of grasses, alfalfa, clover, etc. a pasture should have.
By having access to the rumen fluid, and figuring out these mixtures, they actually help the cow produce more without giving it unnecessary nutrients that could damage it. Farmers also waste fewer resources on unneeded seed and the energy that goes into establishing it.
It’s gross, it smells bad, but it doesn’t hurt the animal. If you drink milk, the reason it doesn’t cost way more than it does is because of continuing research on cows like these.
Also, because of the cost of adding a fistula, those cows are treated like rock stars. They get the best feed, the best medicine, and the best care. They live in research facilities set up to provide the ideal living environment for a cow.
We have these things at the university of idaho. We’ve always called them port hole cows. Chill out people the cows don’t give a shit and it is for legitimate research at a state university. The kid is probably one of the researchers kids not a tourist. One of my friends who’s dad runs the WSU ag. department got to artificially inseminated cows for a school project.
You guys can’t seriously be that upset with this. This has been going on for quite some time now. Most agricultural universities have these.
This looks like Virginia Tech to me. Its a Vet and Agr school. I am guessing VT because of the maroon clothing.
Its common knowledge in Blacksburg about the ‘cows with a hole in their stomach.’ Its very humane and is used for research and edu purposes only.
“he might one day become the vet or scientist that cures bovine spongiform encephalitis (BSE)”
We already know how to prevent this disease… DON’T FEED COWS MEAT FROM OTHER COWS! We already know what cows digest best, grass. This another attempt by humans to fuck with natures perfect system so that you can have cheap steaks. There is a reason the US has a 32.2% obesity rate, 21% have diabetes, and 36.3 percent of all deaths are from cardiovascular disease. EAT LESS COW!
Cows are too stupid to be respected. This is why we don’t care about the rights of cows, or minorities.
Are you kidding me? You think that the surgical procedure and subsequent recovery required to “install” these holes didn’t bother the cow at all??? If your abdominal muscles and stomach wall were cut into and/or removed like this, I think it would be quite bothersome!
You can sure tell the mental age and intelligence of some of these posters by their loose grasp of the complexities of the English language and the excessive use of expletives. And for those of you mental midgets expletives are cuss words. Long live scientific research.
To all of you who say it can’t be real, it must be hurting the cow, or the cow couldn’t really survive, etc. Check your history. There is a famous HUMAN, named Alexis St. Martin, who had such a hole put into him with a shotgun in 1822 (accidentally, of course.) He survuved, but the wound healed into a permanent opening into his stomach. The physician who treated him, William Beaumont saw the opportunity to study digestion. He studied St. Martin off and on until 1833. Almost everything we know about the physiology of digestionn comes from his research on St. Martin. Interestingly, St. Martin lived to the ripe old age of 86, dying in 1880, and outliving Beaumont by 27 years.
I am not attempting to pass any sort of moral judgement here, just saying that this isn’t impossible or even improbable, and that it is quite likely that this does in fact not bother the cows at all, or affect their quality of life.
There are a tremendous number of things that are done in agriculture and animal husbandry that urban and suburban folks would find incredibly surprising or distasteful. We are very disconnected from our food supplies. We like to interact with our food in neat little packages, and only have the vaguest abstract concept of how a cow gets turned into a steak.
I grew up on a dairy farm and we had three fistulated cows. They lived with the cows that had just calved, so they were very well cared for and got excellent feed. We used the fistulas to transfer some stomach fauna to other cows that had stomach aches from an imbalance in their microbe population.
I took a sample of the stomach fluid once and put it under a microscope. It was so exciting to see all the little microorganisms swimming around in the little drop of water. I showed it to each of the technicians that treat our cows when they’re sick, and they were excited about it too.
I personally helped our vet put a fistula into one of our cows. We cleaned her thoroughly, gave her a strong local anesthetic and operated with sterilized instruments, just like with every operation. The whole operation took an hour. Right after the procedure she went straight to the feed bunk and ate to her heart’s content. And that’s what she did every day for the next several years of her life. Eating is a cow’s favorite activity, and she did a lot more of it than most without adverse effects because we harvested part of her stomach contents every day to help other cows.
Just curious - can you put ground up food in through the hole and the cow will never have to eat again? Also, what happens if someone goes cow-tipping and rolls the cow on the side with the hole. Can all the food spill out?
The shocking thing to me is the look into the minds of the commenter’s, and realizing this is a cross section of the minds of the future. Besides, I’ve stuck my hand in a girl and she didn’t mind it one bit. As a matter of fact, she enjoyed it !
If you let the cows eat what they naturally eat we’d all be better off and you wouldn’t need to do this
A US Army Doctor named William Beaumont had a patient with a fistula caused by a bullet, if I recall correctly. This allowed him to study the human stomach in action. The William Beaumont Army Medical Center in El Paso is named for him…and the mess hall is named for his stomach patient…appropriately.
Cows are tasty. The holes are real. Don’t like it? Too bad. Go eat tree bark, but don’t drive to the forest, there’s part of a cow in those tires of yours…
It may prolong cow’s lives and cow research, but these cows are VERY, VERY prone to the dangers of cowtipping.
woow…. thats sooooo cool. like the one poster said, wonder if you could put some marinade in there. that would be sweet. start marinading them when their just calves and once their at the right age after many years of marinading, im betting they would taste so dam great.
Someone should drill a hole in your stomach you sick twisted fuck…..HAAA! ROFL! Gotta love tree huggers. Cry me a river!
I grew up on a dairy farm and went to one of New Englands best Ag colleges. I spent hours in the Nut Lab (Dairy Nutrition Lab) and worked on taking car of the fistulated cows. They spent their days in the general population on pasture or in the free stall. They got the same if not better care and were the better for it.
It smells gross and creepy. It is interesting to look at the contents and to catch the fresh plugs when first swallowed.
Learning and curiosity are part of human nature and this is an extension of our thirst for knowledge.
OMFG, i can’t believe you idiots, photoshop???? really???? So because you have never seen it in real life it MUST be photoshopped right??? Listen you tree hugging, animal rights prooding, naturalistic assholes, this is VERY true, its done for medicinal purposes for the friggen cow. Being born and raised on a farm, I am always amazed at how the city dwellers are so non-believing of what it takes to make your “daily bread”. quit being naive and grow up. these aren’t photoshopped pics asshats, but then again i don’t suppose you have ever seen how they artificially inseminate a cow either. I guess an arm up a cows vagina would be “photoshopped” too huh? Quit posting on blogs and start reading real life books not the sci-fi crap you seem to love so much. Life is gruesome, get over yourselves and your god almighty “this is wrong” outlooks. Children in adult bodies………
Wow you guys. People get shot everyday and no one bats an eye to it. But have a hole in a cow that doesn’t know its even there is sick and terrible. How do you morons think drugs and medical treatments are tested? On animals!
But we do! We drill permanent holes in our earlobes, navels, tongues, nostrils, eyebrows, chins, labia etc and stick things in them. Not to mention chop off the foreskins off our penises.
This is so wrong on so many levels. The people that have committed this and the morons, present and future, that think this is ok, and attack people that are against this can all rot in hell for this. This is the meaning of unethical.
I thought God put man above all living things to rule the earth as he likes. This is no more unnatural than keeping cat as a pet. Cat belongs to nature…
Take the red pill and watch the critically-acclaimed, award-winning first episode of The Meatrix Trilogy. http://www.themeatrix1.com
Just a quick response to Dale:
The idea of not eating cow Dale basically means to remove one more person from the grocery line that is demanding meat. If that happens enough, then the cows will stop being produced for consumption. The company or farm that was producing cows for meat will analyze the market for what the consumer is buying and produce that, or go out of business. Supply and demand man, plain and simple.
Honestly, let’s pumb her full of some A1 and toss that on the fire. Grab some bear, some music and it’s a party.
like ana said, people put holes in places all over their bodies and its not unethical. they know about it, yes, but the cows have no idea whats going on. and those that say that the cows should just be fed natural stuff, have you not read any comments from people who actually know what they are talking about that mention the fact that the research finds out what the farmers should plant so that the cows get the most energy from it. it is done to find out how to save everyone money, the farmers and the consumers. yup, genocide still going on in africa is fine and no one gets their panties in a bunch over that, but animals are “mistreated” and everyone becomes some kind of activist…….awesome….
The scientists know that it doesn’t hurt the cows is because of the extensive post-operation interviews. Not to mention that even after hundreds of port-holes installed, there hasn’t been a single written complaint from ANY of the cows.
Though, if I had to be honest, it isn’t the most cruel or pointless thing done in the name of science. The AEC and its successor have been irradiating mules and donkeys since the 1940’s, and then just watching them die. It would appear that after 60 years or so, they aren’t *quite* convinced that massive doses of radiation are harmful.
A microbiologist once told me that the cow’s stomach content has the most awful smell you can imagine. A guy once got the stuff all over himself in a lab accident, his girlfriend didn’t want to see him for two weeks. 
Seriously people. Animal rights is a joke, we will worry about that after we solve all the human rights problems. And for all of the people saying ‘how do you know it doesn’t hurt them, they can’t interview then,’ should imagine what animals tend to do when they are hurt or distressed. Can you tell the difference between a cat with no problems, and one that is distressed and hurting?
Yes, this is for real, not made up. Saw a movie at a local church called “King Corn” and was put out by the “Slow Foods” movement to educate us about not purchasing all that fast food. Two college classmates rented an acre of farmland to raise corn on it for one season and they traced what happended to the corn upon harvest. Yes, one of them did actually stick his hand into the cows stomach and took out a sample and found out how BAD a diet of corn is for cows,much better to have green grass and natural feed. No one can afford to feed their live stock that way any longer,however,and thus corn is the big thing, although too much corn in their diet can actually kill a cow and the feedlots are so crowded that if they die often they won’t even fall over as there is no room for em to do so. Most interesting and educational movie.
dude i have done this! for a school trip! doesn’t hurt the animal at all, its actually good for them they analyze the contents of their stomaches for nutritional content and to make sure they aren’t eating anything toxic.
i remember asking the lady what would happen if a squirrel jumped in there. she just laughed. i still wonder about it sometimes.
“How is this unethical?”
Are you serious? Where does one begin? How would you like it if we put a hole in your body do people can look in and stick their arms in to feel your innards?
What fucking moron thought this up?
I’ve never seen this many comments on any of your other posts - good job! You must have pissed off a lot of people…and I’m enjoying it.
this makes me really glad to be vegetarian. this is the most disgusting thing i have seen in a long time.
How is it unethical? are you serious? how is drilling a hole in a cows stomach ethical? would you like a hole in you? and having people walk up to you and stick their hand in you? i doubt it.
Don’t some people get stomach tubes when they are unable to eat? It’s the same thing, only the tubes for humans are used for feeding instead of research. Check it out: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feeding_tube
animal research has saved countless human lives. all drugs, medical techniques etc that are used on humans were tried on animals first. i see lots of folks at the hospital were i work with colostomy bags, iv’s, catheters, drainage tubes,etc that are based on the same technology (if that’s the right word) as the cow-ports and are just as disturbing to see but necessairy for their health. gross and creepy can sometimes = life-saving and informative.
Haha, it seems like people get more upset over animal cruelty than human cruelty. And they knew they cows weren’t feeling any pain because cows have certain behaviors when they are in pain (just guessing, using a little logic), like mooing a shitload, or reaching back at the hole as if it’s causing annoyance. Anyways, it is amazing to me how closed minded and quick to pull the trigger people are. It is amusing nonetheless and the interwebz wouldn’t be the same without you retards =).
I think it can be seen as very gross however those who dissaprove need not worry, this may be applicable in some settings, but i really, really doubt every cow will have one of these things, and i cant imagine the results, the new vandalism: carving your name into the inside of a cows stomach! Anyways, i dont think this will catch on, i think its kind of cool, as repulsive as it can come off to be. Unless we have some kind of automatic cow hole drilling machine that does it to cows after birth, i dont think so. Besides the only use for this is to test what things they can and cant digest (cheap ass farmers) next thing you will know youll be drinking milk from a cow that ate old bicycles all its life, just saying.
Feel free to bitch though, you guys.
oh, and to leave on a humorous note:
REACH OUT AND TOUCH SOMEONE! 
alright then theres my view, feel free to contradict me over trivial issues such as this as im 12
Im open minded but this is just sick. The people who invented this should have a hole made in their heads to see If their brains turned to shit!
Deeply disturbing, but I can see how it would have practical uses in veterinary and biological studies.
But think - how would people react if something like this was done to a human?
I hate the double standard we have for animals and ourselves.
Virginia Tech has cows with holes like that as well. I am pretty sure that at least some of those pictures were taken in blacksburg
I guess you chuck a couple of bottle of vodkas in there and you’d get instant drunk cow… How cool would that be?!
“How is it unethical? are you serious? how is drilling a hole in a cows stomach ethical? would you like a hole in you? and having people walk up to you and stick their hand in you? i doubt it.”
Wow. Just wow. Some people need to realize that ANIMALS ARE NOT THE SAME THING AS PEOPLE. Seriously. Cows operate completely differently than you or I. OF COURSE we wouldn’t like someone drilling a hole in us. But sometimes it has to happen: heard of surgery? Besides, cows really don’t care. They are really chill, sturdy, domestic animals.
I went to a field trip to a cow farm in middle school, and half of our class (including me) put our hands into the cow’s stomach. THE COW DID NOT NOTICE AT ALL. How’s that for cruelty?
FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCKKKKKKKKKKKK Why Chuck norris WHY??
This is so perturbating
They have a bunch of cows with those at the University in my town for the agricultural science department. Kind of interesting because you can pull out what they are still digesting and study what it is going through first hand.
WTF? Now that is fucked up. I’m all for eating animals and making clothes out of them, but that’s just fattening them up and then killing them quickly and efficiently. This is something from the hellraiser movies, or something Mangele would do.
Stop torturing these animals like this. Stop keeping them caged up, stop treating them like a product instead of a living thing. Stop killing them in horrible slaughter houses.
“They don’t feel a thing” my a**. That’s what they said about branding (lie) slaughtering (lie) etc.
If this is such a great idea, let’s do it on our kids, the elderly, and everyone else who might benefit from seeing how they digest.
Let’s let the cows stick their hooves in grandmas gut just for fun.
This is horribly wrong.
bwahahah. the next meme! someone make a gif of the kid sticking his hand in the hole in the side of the cow. ahahahah
Many humans get colostomies, where a hole is in the abdomen to pull out stomach, intestines, so they can heal, or to divert the rectum after colon cancer, or for many bedridden after some surgery.
We who have had that done aren’t complaining, because it prolongs our lives. John Wayne shot his movies, for at least the last then years of his life, with a colostomy, and you didn’t even notice! John Wayne died from Colon Cancer.
His movie “The Shootist” showed how they treated colon cancer up until the mid-20th century! You drank painkillers, and died.
google it!
‘“How is this unethical?”
Are you serious? Where does one begin? How would you like it if we put a hole in your body do people can look in and stick their arms in to feel your innards?
What fucking moron thought this up?’
I honestly wouldn’t mind if it helped someone else. As someone who has had cows, if the dumb beast is just calmy sitting there eating, and not bellowing and freaking out, I’m pretty sure that constitutes as “not in pain”.
Now I’m hungry.
Talk as they like-
the human body or otherwise- was not designed
to have an artificial hole to the outside
world. There will be implications for the cow
at some point down the road. Infections for one
and then with the introduction to synthetic
drugs- well- hard to tell which will fuck up
the outcome of their so called study quicker!
This is NOT natural and in my opinion not ethical!
And now we know how foot and mouth was first started off.
I hope to god they soak their hands in bleach.
before and after.
So wrong on many levels!!! And what is the long range purpose for this? I see none and no valid reason other than morbid curiosity. Ewwww!!!
Just for the record, We have a cow like these (affectionately referred to as the “Holey Cow”). He is used in agriculture and biological courses at the university of Delaware to give students an opportunity to study the digestive systems of cows. I never took the class, but i know every student wears a disposable glove that goes all the way up to their shoulder.
Out of all the cows on the farm at the university, he is treated the best and has the easiest life of them all. Simply eat, drink, stand around and let students check out your stomache.
I agree with invasive research methods such as these in the appropriate context. Putting holes in cows to see what foods they respond better to is questionable. How far will Americans go to get a better steak? Eat NZ beef grown on NZ farms where research like this is unnecessary and would be considered unethical.
Coming from an agricultural background, I see no problem with this. At my school, the University of Saskatchewan, we have cows like this too. If the cows experienced any sort of discomfort with this, believe me, you would know.
What I do have a problem with is the self-righteous people out there who see this sort of thing as unethical. Simply drilling a hole in one’s stomach is not the same thing. Cows and people are built differently. We don’t have four parts to our stomachs.
Its very unfortunate that these people who share these beliefs are going to actually breed. “Its cruel.” “Its photoshopped.” These are the mental retards that our society has to deal with. These are the same people who will never really be good at anything in life. These are the people that are unfortunately going to be working under me.
my dad’s a vet and told me about one of these cows from when he was in school in the 70’s. the first guy in line squeezed the muscle that makes them throw the grass back up so they can chew on it some more, but instead it all came out the whole on the first couple of people.
remember that story from when i was a kid, glad i got to see one of the cows.
To the people who are outraged by this cow happily eating while unbeknownst to her there is a hole in her side, having the best care, in a safe environment….try watching animal cops on animal planet, or look into how veal is raised, or how eggs are mass produced in factory farms, and pick your animal rights issues wisely. There’s a lot to be outraged about, but sorry this isn’t it.
And to agree with many posters, those who have been around cattle know when one is uncomfortable.
Hey, all you non-farmers posting here…if a cow
eats too much clover for example, they will
‘bloat’…which means they swell up so much they
will die if the internal gas isn’t released. The
quick and dirty solution that small dairy farmers
used to (and probably still do) is to take an axe
and chop a hole in the cow at about the location
of the hole shown in the pix….many a dairy cow
sports a scar where this happened.
At Washington State University(Pullman, WA) at
least in the late ’50s the vet. department had
such a cow with a square hole in its side…
doesn’t smell real good but you can see the
digestion process going on.
How is it un-ethical? The cows dont seem upset by it, and it is promoting our curiosity. You never know, maybe it will inspire the kid,and he will end up saving loads of cows.
Does the hole just go to one stomach, though?