March 20th, 2008 
Spooky 
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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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!
It’s like a porthole!
I could go saiing in it!
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
where does this go on? and is there any over picture?
But can you fuck the hole?
I guess you chuck a couple of bottle of vodkas in there and you’d get instant drunk cow… How cool would that be?!
WTF happens when it rains?!
“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?
wow this is bunch of bull shit
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.
These comments are great!
Maybe Chuck Norris is practicing on these cows? LOL!
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.
i want a hole in my stomach. then i could pull my hamburgers out and eat them again.
IT IS A FUCKING COW
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!
ay no mames!!!
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.
http://media.www.thelantern.com/media/storage/paper333/news/2003/12/02/Campus/A.Window.To.The.World.Of.A.Cows.Stomach-569718.shtml
Interesting, relevant read
Life just isn’t fair if your in the lower chain (may it be food chain or rulling chain).
WTF, thats twisted
Don’t drop your phone, cause you wont want it back.
The pictures were taken in a soundstage on mars, and then photoshopped.
Also, ANYTHING THAT LOOKS MILDLY DISGUSTING MUST BE UNETHICAL AND THEREFORE ENRAGES ME, DESPITE ANY REAL BENEFITS IT MAY HAVE
There are only two principles to ethics – Do no harm – Do good. I don’t see that either of these principles are being broken here. Care is being taken that the hole does not cause health issues, in fact this surgery is often used on human throats to aid breathing due to other medical problems. So, it’s not doing harm. The second principle is do good, and by the sounds this is doing good. It’s inspiring curiosity, it’s at a teaching farm, and it’s used to research cow feed. Nothing about this is bad or harmful, therefore it’s ethical. It may not be moral to some individuals, but let’s get our semantics right…
Personally I feel that morals are overrated, they only reflect an individual in a single culture at a single point in time. I know that my morals are different today to mine five years ago, to my Mum’s 30 years ago, to my family’s before moving to the UK 100 years ago.
Ethics over morals!
If you half wits with your “god didn’t intend on this” were in any way more then the single celled organisms that plague my planet would care to read the posted comments you would find that I think this cow hole mijjiger is a riot. If people wanna stick weird things in cows then go for it. If hippies want to complain then stuff yourselves, no one gives a shit. Emphasis on “People” and “hippies” are not the same. I created Man in my image, yes this includes woMEN, not hippies. hippies were a tragic accident and if I could do it all over again then I would make sure they never happened. Kinda like abortion.
this is fucking messed up!!!
what the fuck like you have mental problems this is almost as bad as killing seals for a sport:(
so go fuck your mmom you low life bitches go suck your self and how would you like it if people put a hole in you for science FUCK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
why do u do that it is animal crulty!!!
this is really messed up.!
How could you do this to the cow’s
and let the public do it to god that is
that fucked up
OK I COULD SEE DOING IT ON 1 OR 2 COWS FOR SCIENCE BUT THIS
WHY? AND LETING ANYONE DO IT THATS BAD!? SO I THINK WE SHOULD GO DRILL A HOLE IN YOU HUH?! HUH?! I BET YOUD LIKE THAT YOU SCIENCE IDIOTS GOD!? POOR COWS!
YOU ARE A BUNCH OF DUMB BUTTS!!!!!
woow…. thats sooooo cool.
oh dear thants really really wrong.
Thats like someone putting a hole in you, just to feel your fucking insides.
Wrong in so many levels
seems like something you’d see in a scifi film. Pretty gross.
the cow is not god.