Nature
PUBLISHED
1
We don't want to come across as some sort of conspiracy theorist raging about how they're putting 5G in birds, but did you know that they (farmers) are putting magnets in cows?
Known as cow magnets, the devices are placed inside cattle to deal with "hardware disease", or traumatic reticuloperitonitis. Cows, like myself at an all-you-can-eat buffet, can often take large mouthfuls and swallow them down without taking the time to chew. Efficient feeding as this may be, it leaves them vulnerable to any stray pieces of metal in their food, from broken farm equipment to screws and wire from fencing, for example.
These pieces of metal can perforate the reticulum (the second chamber in stomachs of ruminant animals) causing infection, fever, digestive issues, and pain in the animals. Though the best way to deal with hardware disease is to prevent metal from entering the cows' diet, farmers and ranchers also often place cow magnets inside the animals' stomachs using a stomach tube or a balling gun.
"Using magnets in the reticulum has become a popular preventive routine for hardware disease, especially in the dairy breeds," Bonnard L. Moseley, then of the University of Missouri College of Veterinary Medicine explained in a resource about hardware disease. "The magnet simply keeps foreign metallic objects adhered together in a ball, reducing the chances of penetrating the reticulum."
The magnets remain in place throughout the animals' lives, and are removed after the cows die or are killed for meat.
