Cows, do the tip?

Do cow tip? Some legends say so. The recognized prank has become a become a rural controversy between those who swear they have successfully tipped a cow and those who claim it’s realistically impossible. Although there are several different opinions, one fact still remains: nobody is really sure.

Brianne Potter a junior in biology said she decided to try cow tipping one night because she and several of her friends were extremely bored. She said they tied rope around the cows’ knees, buckling them, while several others pushed the cow from its side.

“It totally tipped over and then it just kind of squirmed around on the ground while we ran like crap to get out of there,” Potter said.

They tried tipping the cow without the rope, she said, but it just became angry and ran away. Potter feels they were successful because the ground was very slippery and their roping methods helped knock the cow off balance.

“It was muddy, there was manure allover the place and we were nasty, but I think it helped,” Potter said.

Despite this enthusiastic claim, Whitney Fleetwood, a family dairy farmer from Murray says she thinks it’s highly unlikely.

“When we’re herding cows and they’re on the road, we will sometimes accidentally hit them with our cars and they still won’t tip over. I’m pretty sure a bunch of crazy kids couldn’t do it,” Fleetwood said.

Fleetwood said cows are very aware when they sleep and would be awakened before anybody could put their hands on them. She also said cows sleep in herds and would alert each other before any intruders were at a reachable distance.

“They’re smart animals,” she said. “They’re not just going to sleep through anything, like humans.”

Fleetwood said she would advise practical jokers to not try this prank because it’s harmful to the animals and could potentially be harmful to the perpetrators, especially if the cows became aggravated or angry.

“Besides,” Fleetwood added, “you’d probably have to be drunk in order to do it because that’s probably the only time it would be fun.”

Dale Zobell, associate professor of animal science, said he agrees that cow tipping is nothing but “a good myth that sounds logical.”

Zobell added to Fleetwood’s arguments, saying that cows are very aware because they only sleep periodically and are very light sleepers who are easily awakened at anything.

“You have to understand cattle behavior to realize that it is a myth,” Zobell said.

He said his biggest argument would be that cattle normally lay down when

they sleep. He said on rare occasions they do fall asleep while standing, but they usually sleep with their knees slightly bent and their legs apart, making it impossible for an animal who weighs several hundred pounds and

is low to the ground to be tipped.

“I’ve never known someone to actually go into a pasture and try it, but it seems like total foolishness to even try it,” Zobell said.

Lewiston dairy farmer Gordon Barlow said he “has never known a cow who slept standing,” but wasn’t completely convinced that cows couldn’t be tipped if

there were other factors helping in the process.

“I think maybe if a cow was standing up and for some reason it couldn’t move, you could maybe tip it over,” Barlow said.

Although these factors could help make the legend true, Barlow said he feels in any normal circumstance, tipping a cow would be very unlikely and maybe even

impossible.

“I think it’s kind of one of those joke things,” Barlow said, “but it makes for a fun legend, doesn’t it?”

-megan@cc.usu.edu