Cow tipping
Cow tipping is a pastime allegedly common in rural areas, in which participants sneak up on an upright sleeping cow and then push it over for amusement. Some variants of this urban legend state that the cow is then unable to get up.
One popular variant relies on a supposition that cows lean into a steady wind while asleep in order to keep balance. Based on this, the cow tipper lightly pushes against one side of the cow's torso, and gradually increases the force of push. The cow, while asleep, leans into the push and remains upright. Then when the cow tipper has all of their body weight on the cow, they jump to the side. The cow, still leaning into the ‘wind’, tips over in that direction.
Evidence against cow tipping
The concept of cow-tipping requires that the cow be unaware and asleep. Cows have good hearing and are easily awakened.
There is no evidence, aside from mostly unreliable eyewitness reports, that any cows have ever been tipped in the purported manner. In addition, there are a number of problems with typical accounts of cow tipping. Unlike horses, cows do not 'lock their legs' when they sleep. Cows lie down while sleeping [1] and most of their sleep is very light and easily disturbed — typical of herd prey animals; they take only short naps at regular intervals throughout a 24 hour period, which means that at any given time, some members of the herd are aware and alert. A cow's field of vision is larger than that of a human, and they have acute senses of hearing and smell. Thus, cows are not easy to sneak up on. If startled, they quickly communicate to the rest of the herd that something is amiss.
Cows are large, and would be very difficult to tip, even for several people working together. A grown cow can be over 1.5 m (5 feet) high with a mass in the order of 540 kg (1,200 lb) all the way up to 900 kg (2,000 lb). By way of comparison, a typical sumo wrestler masses only 140 kg (310 lb). The four corners of a large "American-style" domestic refrigerator fairly closely approximate the spread of a cow's legs. If the refrigerator were cut down to 1.5 m (5 feet), filled with 400 kg (880 lb) of weights, and placed in a muddy field, tipping it would offer a comparable challenge to tipping a cow.
Variants of the legend claim that successfully tipping a cow will result in its death. Although cows can die if prevented from sitting upright for an extended period of time[citation needed], briefly forcing a cow onto its back will not kill it. Under typical circumstances, a cow knocked onto its back would be able to restore itself to an upright position.
Other versions of the cow tipping story attempt to evade these objections by claiming, for example, that although cows lie down to dream, they can still doze while standing. Others appeal to a paper published by the University of British Columbia which calculates that, in certain circumstances, five people could topple a cow. Such a situation, however, would be highly unlikely, meaning they effectively debunked it as an urban legend. [2]
Finally, attempting to tip a cow is a potentially dangerous activity. Despite the animal's reputation for being placid and slow-moving, a cow is easily capable of hurting someone when provoked or nervous; a herd of cows or a bull (easily mistaken for a cow in the dark) would be even more dangerous. It is also a common practice among dairy farmers to keep lactating cows inside and to keep pregnant cows who are not in milk outside until they calve. Thus, if cow tipping is attempted where most cattle are kept inside in large barns but only a few by comparison are kept in pasture, there is an increased chance that the target of cow tipping may be pregnant. Whether an attempt at cow tipping is effective or not, even startling a pregnant cow or heifer could cause her to run and fall unnecessarily and could damage the unborn calf or the freshening cow or heifer. Cow tipping is stupid!!!!!!!!
Evidence for cow tipping
The theoretical plausibility of cow tipping is supported by a document done by members of the zoology department at the University of British Columbia. (See reference below.)
Cow tipping in popular culture
References to cow tipping have appeared in many humorous media, such as the comic strip Garfield, the video games Barnyard for GBA, The Bard's Tale, The Sims 2, Crash Tag Team Racing, Fallout Tactics: Brotherhood of Steel, Asheron's Call: Dark Majesty[3], Destroy All Humans, Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney, and Day of the Tentacle, the television shows Drawn Together, That '70s Show, and Beavis and Butt-Head, and the films Barnyard: The Original Party Animals, Larva [4], Heathers, Sweet Home Alabama, Tommy Boy, and Cars. The radio show Foxy and Tom often discusses cow tipping.
In 1991, NPR broadcast a half-hour radio play called "Cow Tipping," a comedy about five hapless college-aged cow tippers in Illinois. The play was produced by the Midwest Radio Theatre Workshop.
In the song "Lou Reed" by The Little Willies, the lyrics include: "And we don't mean to sound like we're trippin/But we swear to God/We saw Lou Reed cow tippin."
See also
- Steer wrestling in which a running steer is "tipped".
- Geier Hitch, whereby a running bull is "steered"
External links
- Articles discussing how cows could be tipped
- Articles arguing that cow tipping is an urban legend
- The Most Urban of All Urban Legends
- Adventures in cow tipping - Fiction!
- The Times article on Cow Tipping by Jack Malvern
- The Register article debunking the myth of cow tipping while drunk by Lester Haines
- Additional links about cow tipping
- Straight Dope article - Discusses whether it is possible.
- Humorous article about Cow Tipping - ubersite.com
- Cow-tipping computer game One picture shows the player character using martial arts in a stance to focus his chi as the means to push over a three thousand pound cow.