It is definitely a cruel world.
Just when we get communism pretty well killed off, the Germanys back together and the world’s great superpowers holding hands like Grade 9 lovebirds, along comes the news that methane gas from the insides of the planet’s huge cattle population is contributing to global warming, the greenhouse effect, the hole in the ozone layer and, what the heck, we may as well throw in acid rain and soil erosion as well.
I’ll be as delicate as I can be about this. Every time a cow belches – and the average bovine burps a bundle, believe me – earth is that much closer to self destructing.
But even more dangerous, according to some very serious environmentalists, is the flatus that emanates from other orifices owned by Bossy and her buddies in the barnyard. Each time a cattle beast passes wind, we all are moved just a little closer to the precipice, over which resides oblivion. And if you have ever been near a cow that’s passing wind, you can’t help but be moved. Most often, to tears.
But, singer k. d. lang has it all figured out, thank heavens. If we didn’t insist on eating these creatures, we wouldn’t need to keep so many of them around. And thus the air would be fresher, cleaner, safer. Oh, we’d have to hang on to the odd cow, to keep k. d. and her country singing cohorts in their fancy leather boots and suede vests, but we could get rid of the rest and make all those pastures into golf courses, which is what God intended them to be in the first place.
Now, I hate to disagree with k. d. lang but I don’t think people are ready to give up eating beef just yet, despite her TV ads asking us to quit. So that leaves us only one other option if the world is to have any future at all.
We’ll have to get cows to give up their fondness for flatulence.
Fortunately, environmental researchers have piled up quite a body of study on this matter and there is no shortage of suggestions for curbing gas emissions from cows. Here are a few of the best ways to get those cows’ stomachs – they have four, you know – to settle down.
- Cut the cattle way back on the bran muffins you feed them. Give them lots of oats and wheat but stay the heck away from that bran.
-
By studying your herd, you can pick out those troublemaking few cattle that burp and pass wind to be funny and get the rest of them doing it too. Separate them and put them in a field by themselves.
-
Step up your cows’ usual diet of cheese, doubling and even tripling the amounts you normally feed. This should tighten things up a bit.
-
Overweight animals are more prone to gas problems so 20-minute workouts in the stables every morning are not out of the question.
-
As a last resort, you might want to try the new flatus-preventing technique known as CORK, or Containing Oral and Rectal Kazoos.
There is another excellent method of reducing cattle gas known as PLUG which we’ll explore at another time.
For now, it is important to make a start at bunging up those cows. And now you know the subtle message Bart Simpson is really trying to convey when he says: “Cowabunga, dude!”
(This has been a public-service announcement from COWS – the Committee to Outlaw Windy Stables.)
©1991 Jim Hagarty
