Cows with Holes

By Rebecca Powell, 6-09-08

	That's exactly what you think it is!

We are walking by the ag pens on the campus of New Mexico State University. My almost two-year-old son points and names the animals, “Sheep. Baaa. Pigs. Oink. Cows. Mooo.”

The cows.  There’s something, something rubber on the flank of the steers.  My first thought is some kind of fly or insect repellant device, but, eww, the skin seems to have grown around the round rubber device.

I call my brother, an ag econ major and rancher, “Shawn, there’s some kind of round rubber disc on the flank of these steers.” He asks me for a better description of the location and then says, “Cool.  It’s exactly what you think it is – a doorway to the stomach.”

Not once did I think it was a doorway to the stomach.  “Why? Why do these steers need a doorway to the stomach?”

My town-raised husband is grimacing beside me.  My son could care less about a doorway to the stomach, as long as the steers will moo at him, and I am hoping a doorway to the stomach has a noble purpose.

“They can measure the effectiveness of different feeds.” Kind of noble.  I guess.

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