Why do cows shake their tails?
While writing a postcard to a friend on-board the train from Füssen to Munich, I - in an attempt to cover as much space on it as was humanly possible - wrote down this observation: "The cows are shaking their tails." I guess I scrawled it on the postcard as an afterthought because I figured it was just the kind of silly remark that would make him laugh. As I went through other countries (including the Czech Republic, Switzerland and France), I noticed that this was not a Bavarian peculiarity; it transcended borders. All cows shake their tails.
Genuinely curious, while in Paris, I posed the question to one of my friends: Why do cows shake their tails? Her response: "Maybe they're squatting flies." Not convinced but willing to consider her theory, I continued my observations. But while in Wales, I noticed the same phenomenon and there was not a fly to be seen. I had serious doubts!
Back home in Canada and having noticed (surprise surprise) that cows shake their tails in good-good clean-clean (little sidetrack: I picked up an awful book to read while in Europe. It's about this girl in India who keeps saying "good-good sweet-sweet") Canada as well, I got the opportunity to question a few more friends about it: "Why *do* cows shake their tails?"
First Response: "To clean their asses."
Second Response: "Why does it matter?"
Response to first response first. How could cows possibly shake their tails to clean their asses? They shake them continuously, not only after having shat. Response to second response (and a very mature one at that): "I wanna know."
Now, having said that, I pose the question to you: Why is it that cows shake their tails?
Genuinely curious, while in Paris, I posed the question to one of my friends: Why do cows shake their tails? Her response: "Maybe they're squatting flies." Not convinced but willing to consider her theory, I continued my observations. But while in Wales, I noticed the same phenomenon and there was not a fly to be seen. I had serious doubts!
Back home in Canada and having noticed (surprise surprise) that cows shake their tails in good-good clean-clean (little sidetrack: I picked up an awful book to read while in Europe. It's about this girl in India who keeps saying "good-good sweet-sweet") Canada as well, I got the opportunity to question a few more friends about it: "Why *do* cows shake their tails?"
First Response: "To clean their asses."
Second Response: "Why does it matter?"
Response to first response first. How could cows possibly shake their tails to clean their asses? They shake them continuously, not only after having shat. Response to second response (and a very mature one at that): "I wanna know."
Now, having said that, I pose the question to you: Why is it that cows shake their tails?
posted by Moi at 4:30 p.m.
3 Comments:
Hey Motu... That has to be umm.. the weirdest question I have ever heard. You must have been really bored on that train. Now that you asked, I have no idea. You must find out, so we can all be a little smarter.
Ok umm.. Apparently cows give off a lot of "Methane" from their rear ends. And not that i've smelt it before, we can all imagine that it must wreak! So... in order for other cows to not be able to pin point who farted, they wag their tails to disperse the smell :)
it's the same reason guys touch their genitalia.....some things are done just because u can!
-j
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