it’s certainly not a science

January 11, 2012 2:55 PM

Cow Pieology 101

Cow pieology helps you interpret your cattle herd's feed analysis and figure out if something should change.

posted by zennie (16 comments total)

Cow Chip Toss
posted by cjorgensen at 2:58 PM on January 11, 2012

I grew up in an area of very poor, low protein high fiber forage (West Texas scrub brush). Cow pie number two is exactly what I would tell you is the classic cow pie.
posted by Xoebe at 3:04 PM on January 11, 2012

Growing up in rural Illinois, I was always intrigued by the flies and other critters that would hatch out of cow pies.

Hint: Never stand behind a cow that's just been turned out into new spring pasture after a winter on dry hay.
posted by webhund at 3:15 PM on January 11, 2012

There's only one type of cow pie, and that's the type that Desperate Dan Eats.
posted by GallonOfAlan at 3:20 PM on January 11, 2012

Cow Patti
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 3:28 PM on January 11, 2012 [3 favorites]

Home of the Cow Pie.
posted by timsteil at 3:31 PM on January 11, 2012 [1 favorite]

In grad school I worked on programming for the university's forestry department. They'd use low-altitude balloon aerial photos for mapping and measurement of trees and other vegetation. Lots of small images would have to be stitched together to make one large aerial panorama. In this one particularly scrubby area that cattle grazed on they used cow pies to register and align the images for the stitching process.
posted by zsazsa at 4:26 PM on January 11, 2012 [2 favorites]

The home of the cow pie is of course the Dandy, and I for one bemoan the absence of Desperate Dan in this thread.
posted by biffa at 4:32 PM on January 11, 2012 [2 favorites]

What's the difference between a man and a cow?

One brain cell that prevents them from leaving pies all over the place!
posted by netbros at 4:33 PM on January 11, 2012

mmmMmmmmMMmm... piiiiiieee
posted by not_on_display at 5:03 PM on January 11, 2012

Alas, this is one place where we know more about how to read cow pies than we do about human pies. Except for the Bristol Stool Scale, of course.
posted by sneebler at 5:14 PM on January 11, 2012

Huh. There's actually an SF short story about this, but I forget the author. I'm thinking Analog, late 60os early 70s. Humor. Aliens come to earth, don't want much of anything we have, but get a craze for cow pies.
posted by Joe in Australia at 1:43 AM on January 12, 2012

Hint: Never stand behind a cow that's just been turned out into new spring pasture after a winter on dry hay.

This is probably a good tip for someone too eager to perform some Cow Pieology. She blinded me with science?
posted by exogenous at 5:12 AM on January 12, 2012

This was a depressing surprise. In the UK I've always known Cow Pie to refer to the sort of thing Desperate Dan might eat. Whereas cow poop would be a 'Cow Pat' (Leading to the classic "What do you get if you sit under a cow?" "A pat on the head!" joke)

Teasing people with promises of a tasty meat pie and leading them onto images like that really isn't fair :(.
posted by ElliotH at 6:55 AM on January 12, 2012

Joe in Australia: you are thinking of Damon Knight's "The Big Pat Boom."
posted by Mr. Justice at 5:21 PM on January 12, 2012

Heh. And Googling indicates that it's not the only SF story based on cow pats. I smell an opportunity for a thematic collection! Oh, boy do I smell it.
posted by Joe in Australia at 7:18 PM on January 12, 2012