Specifically, it occurs when the cows eat high volumes of clover or other nitrogen fixing plants (most legumes fall in to this category). Ruminants produce a lot of gas in their digestive process, because their stomachs are designed to ferment their food, allowing them to better access highly fibrous food sources like grass. Normally, they belch or fart the gas away, but in the case of nitrogen fixing clovers, they produce too much gas to be able to burp and fart away, and they end up with fatal bloating!
I remember learning this in school in rural Australia. The most amazing thing is that I still remember it :P
Stupid question, but could a similar thing happen to a human? I don’t belch/burp, and I can get insanely bloated. I should probably see a doctor to see if this is normal or if there’s a treatment, but it’s kind of embarrassing!
no such thing as embarrassing when dealing with medical problems, they’ve seen and heard everything and medical staff that at all makes you feel bad are incompetent and should get another job.
Any good medical worker is there to make you feel better, and will actively appreciate blunt honesty because it makes everything so much easier and treatments more effective.
Hey this was really cool of you to post and I appreciate it. Thank you!
It might be a rare condition called RCPD where a muscle in your esophagus is too strong. The treatments are a shot of Botox to weaken the muscle, or getting it cut a little bit if Botox doesn’t work.
I have issues with it intermittently.
Holy shit this is 100% me! Holy shit it has a name!!! Thank you!!!
Not a doctor, and you should definitely talk to one before trying it, but I have found Eno to be remarkable in solving gaseous bloating.
Thank you!
But wouldn’t nitrogen lead to ammonia? Methane is ch4, with no nitrogen? Or does nitrogen fixing vegetation somehow induce other digestion paths?
yeah I think the extra ammonia and hydrogen gas emitted from the nitrogen fixation process fucks with the regular breakdown of sugars to make more CH4 instead of CO2.
The products of the nitrogen fixation make the environment inside the stomach less aerobic so you end up with the anaerobic breakdown of sugars.
You just know there’s some old vet that systematically lights up his cig on this every time he does it, all casual
I appreciated the TIL by itself, but the video added a whole new dimension of “definitely, this is not what I was imagining”.
Thank you!
Oh, neat! Message received: if I eat enough beans, I can be my own creme brulee torch!
Imagine thinking this is a good solution to horribly mis-feeding animals.
what makes you think this is due to misfeeding?
Because it’s very common to feed cows subsidized grains instead of letting them graze on grasses. Definitely the kind of thing that would create too much methane during digestion. Corn especially has way more sugars than the grasses they’re supposed to eat.
Edit: It appears it’s not necessarily grain but does have to do with the quality of their feed.
The problem isn’t methane production, it’s excessive soluble proteins producing a thick foam that prevents the methane from being expelled through the esophagus. Any feed produces large amounts of gas in grazing animals. What changes is the animals ability to safely vent the gas.
https://biologyinsights.com/why-does-alfalfa-cause-bloat-in-cattle/
Everything I’ve read has said the opposite, but I’m no farmer.
I see lots of studies saying the grass and hay fed cattle produce more methane from the animals. Diets with high insoluble fiber are diets that create more methane. That said, grain production uses more CO2 than hay or pasture land.
Best thing is low fiber greenery, but that shit is expensive, and industrial farming goes with grass or grain.
Yeah, it’s the quality of the feed, not necessarily it being grain. I had added an edit but you probably were commenting before that.
I don’t get why people have these kind of arguments without providing sources. It makes you both look argumentative and not very trustworthy.
It was conjecture and then a discussion. There was no argument happening. Sometimes it’s fun to just have a discussion and use that to get to the truth.
If you’re curious here’s a starting point. https://www.journalofdairyscience.org/article/S0022-0302(25)00595-8/fulltext
Right, but how do you know who is talking from knowledge, and who isn’t?
Anyway, thanks for the reference, now I know :)
Specifically, it looks like the big thing is the content of insoluble fiber. If it’s fiber overload, you get lots of gas in their rumen.
this is post hoc ergo propter hoc. you haven’t shown causation
Do you know how animals like cows digest their food?
if you have something to say, like some evidence this is a result of misfeeding, please say it. I don’t care for your interrogative style.
You’ve probably heard at some point in your life that cows have 4 stomachs (or a 4-chambered stomach)
The purpose for that is because in their natural environment cows eat grass (not that there’s really “natural” cows anymore, the aurochs is long-extinct, but other ruminants like bison are similar)
Grass is kind of a shitty food source for most animals, it has very little sugar and starch that your body can use for energy.
But it is full of fiber. Most animals can’t really digest fiber very well, but ruminants with those extra stomachs and the help of some bacterial fermentation can. Grass and such basically gets churned around in those extra stomach chambers with some bacteria to ferment and break down into something the cows can actually use for energy.
Fermentation, of course, creates gases like CO2 which is why beer is fizzy and bread rises.
And while that bacteria can and will ferment fiber, it will ferment sugars and starches even better.
So grains like corn end up creating more gases than if they were eating grass.
that sounds like it’s just a natural, common problem cows have. good thing they are under our care, or bloat would be fatal.
Naturally, cows wouldn’t have access to a limitless supply of corn that has been selectively cultivated over the years to have higher sugar and starch content. They don’t tend to have this issue when they’re eating primarily grass and can easily release it on their own by burping.
There would surely be some odd cases here and there of cows getting bloated on a less grain-heavy diet, but not nearly as common
corn isn’t supernatural, and if humans disappeared today they would still have access to it
I’ve seen cows in pasture get this.
It’s much harder to break down corn than grass for ruminants.
Sometimes animals escape their enclosures and mis-feed themselves. The couple times I’ve witnessed this were the result of cows helping themselves to a field of alfalfa. Alfalfa is good as a component of a silage mix but is too rich to be consumed fresh on its own. But cows love alfalfa and are good at finding weaknesses in fencing.
I’ve witnessed this were the result of cows helping themselves to a field of alfalfa.
That little rascle!
Wow, that would explain the mutilated cows that people think are aliens. Like lightning striking an explosive cow and boom ground beef.
Doesn’t take a lightning strike. A cow dead for long enough may explode due to gas buildup. Conspiracy people gonna conspiracy tho
Also whales do that too. It’s not uncommon if you live by the shore
Sometimes they need some help.
Ignoring the gigantic needle piercing its body, that pressure relief must feel amazing
It feels barely nothing for cows. A typical “syringe” for them looks like a freaking gun
I can’t read pixelese, but I think that’s an insemination device, not a syringe.
That’s one of my pickup lines!
What on earth is that for? I’ve injected a lot of cattle with vaccines/antibiotics in a former life and never saw a needle this size. Unless it’s something requiring a vet maybe?
the way we treat animals is fucking horrifying.
Helping it not die from internal gas build up is horrifying? That sounds like an awful way to go.
Corn added in the diet makes this much more common than natural, by a lot.
I suspect they mean that their force fed diet that’s causing an excess of methane buildup on the regular is the issue, not so much the pressure valve release situation happening in this video.
Theyre typically fed corn because it is cheaper, easy to store and transport and it makes beef taste “better”. Cows are supposed to eat grass, not corn.
Pedant here: corn is a grass. Modified by centuries of selective breeding, and not endemic to the region where the aurochs were domesticated.
Corn is a grass, but you are typically feeding them the grain of the grass rather than the stalks and leaves which they should be eating.
Normally grass grains aren’t the majority diet of cows, it’s the leaves.
AfaIk, the entire plant is chopped, fermented and fed to cattle. Yet, compared to grass, corn has a higher content on easily digestable carbohydrates.
Corn is grass the same way sugar is grass or bread is grass.
Not quite the same way. Bread and sugar are products we make from grasses (wheat & sugar cane).
High fructose corn syrup is grass in the same way as sugar and bread, and beer for that matter.
It has been cultivated to produce huge starchy kernels and is then refined to remove all other parts.
From what I’ve heard from farmers, the really good beef is grass fed and then corn/grain finished. So the animal eats grass most of their life, and then for a little while before slaughter they are fed corn to build up their fat content.
Could be wrong, but I’ve had multiple people who raised cows tell me this diet plan.
It happens naturally and isn’t the result of force feeding
This is exactly how we used to treat a collapsed lung in humans, sometimes still do. Been there, would rather have been poked with that method than the giant tube up my side to the top of my lung.
thats a nice clean blue flame, looks like a burner on a gas stove
Since it comes out my butt, is it MEthane or BUTTane?
Probably profane propane
Randy Bobandy would approve
Whatever. Taste the meat, not the heat!
Gee I somehow thought somebody shot a lil jet propelled blow dart lol
Lmao they literally flare off the cow??
Hey Angus, why is Hettie on fire?
Oh she just walked past Bessie.
Best to give Bessie a wide birth ey Angus.
That’s right Maggie, when you see Bessie coming you better MOOOOOOve over.
Oh nice one Angus.
Thanks maggs that’s why they call me the cow-median.
Udder genius.
It’s half and half tbh
Cutting out the middle man to light your farts on fire.
That cow is very slightly rocket powered.
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I know I might get shit for this, but I thought I would share it anyways because you asked.
Ultimate Requirement for Ballistic Bovine
- Methane Production: ~2 kg/s sustained (400x natural rate).
- LOX Supply: 10 kg/s (requiring cryogenic tanker trucks).
- Thrust: > 7,000 N (per cow-nozzle).
- Structural Integrity: Cow reinforced with carbon nanotubes (to avoid rapid unplanned disassembly at ignition).
- Ignition System: Tesla Coil Spark Plug implanted in the rumen.
- Trajectory: Vertical launch pad (avoiding trees, barns, UFOs).
Final Verdict:
Technically possible if you:- Treat the cow as a meat-based fuselage.
- Ignore ethics, biology, physics, and local fire codes.
- Have a NASA-sized budget and a death wish.
Outcome:
- Success? A charred cow fragment reaches low Earth orbit.
- Failure? A crater smelling of burnt hair and rocket fuel.
- Better Use: Flare the methane. It’s cheaper, safer, and the cow lives.
Disclaimer: No cows were harmed in this thought experiment. Please do not weaponize livestock. 🚀🐄🔥
Achieving Ballistic Velocity (The Tsiolkovsky Cow Equation)
The **Rocket Equation** is brutal:
`Δv = Isp * g₀ * ln(m₀ / m_f)`
Where:
* `Δv` = Change in velocity needed (`11,186 m/s` for escape).
* `Isp` = Specific impulse (`~360 s` for CH4/LOX).
* `g₀` = Gravity (`9.81 m/s²`).
* `m₀` = Initial mass (cow + engines + LOX + methane).
* `m_f` = Final mass (just… cooked cow?).
**Assumptions:**
* Engine mass: `300 kg` (mini-Raptor).
* LOX mass: **5x** methane mass (rocket ratio).
* Methane stored: `500 kg` (we’re pumping hard).
* `m₀ = 700 (cow) + 300 (engine) + 500 (CH₄) + 2,500 (LOX) = 4,000 kg`.
* `m_f = 700 kg` (cow, assuming engines/tanks detach).
**Calculation:**
`Δv = 360 * 9.81 * ln(4,000 / 700)`
`= 3,531.6 * ln(5.71)`
`= 3,531.6 * 1.74`
`= ~6,150 m/s`.
**Result:** **6,150 m/s < 11,186 m/s**.
→ **Verdict:** Suborbital cow. Maximum apogee: **~1,000 km** (a very high moo).
→ **Impact Velocity:** **~3-4 km/s** (kinetic energy = 0.5 * 700kg * (3,500m/s)^2 ≈ **4.3 gigajoules**).
→ **Effect:** Creates a **10m wide crater**, vaporizing the cow and any nearby farmers. A true “pasture bomb.”
*raises hand* this is assuming a spherical cow, right?
Why did I study all this shit if in the end I am still broke af
Because you aren’t making cow propelled rockets even though you know how.
Because everyone is broke af
This seems much less than 2kg/s and where do you get liquid oxygen from?
You missed out the part where cows are frictionless and spherical. Also there are 322 of them in the truck.
Spoken like a true redditor
So its… kinda like a tracheotomy, but for your gut, so… gastrotomy?
Ah, ‘gastrostomy’.
A medically necessary, emergency fart valve.
Amazing.
Pericentesis is probably a closer analogue.
G (I’m no veterinarian but I’d guess you’d number which stomach it’s going into since G means gastric) tube?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paracentesis
Do you mean this?
Either way, TIL!
Though, if I am understanding this right, paracentesis typically is targetted at… some kind of fluid build up basically outside of the actual gastrointestinal tract, in the paracenteal cavity, the space between your abdominal muscles and organs…
… the procedure does seem to outwardly more resemble this cow fart valve in appearence, but it doesn’t actually directly pierce, go into the intenstine directly.
