Competitors are said to pump air to deliberately inflate the udders before sealing the teats with superglue to stop the air or milk leaking out. The procedure gives the cattle the appearance of having full udders, an attribute believed to be desirable in show cattle. The practice, which leaves cows in “severe discomfort”, is understood to be an attempt to win agricultural prizes for their animals. Champion animals can fetch up to £100,000 at auction and are highly prized for breeding. The RSCPA has promised to investigate complaints, although no prosecutions have yet taken place.
Here is more, courtesy of Rahul.
It was in, I believe, You Can’t Cheat an Honest Man, that W.C. Fields said that a thing worth having is a thing worth cheating for.
http://www.supergluecorp.com/removingsuperglue.html
Acetone + Q-tip = Done
Does this explain any of the Zeppelin-chested humanoids in p0rn?
This could so easily have been a satire about current economies. Nations as show cattle?
The next bubble that is about to burst?
But seriously, this is cruel and sad.
Tad big to call em a bubble…
Sung to the tune of Sweet Molly Malone:
I once saw an udder,/
That was like no udda,/
It was bloated, it floated, Sweet Bessy Malone.//
There was this young blogger,/
Who told me this storey/
Why poor Bessy was Mooing so loudly/
Poor Bessy Malone.//
She had some pure nitrous/
Put in her pure titty/
All for the purpose of winning a game.//
Now when you drink moo juice/
And see some small bubbles/
Think of Poor Bessy Malone.//
A similar practice for show pigs involves sticking a hose in their mouth, Duck Taping it in place, and turning on the tap. This ups their weight, which is an important judging criteria, but can often kill the pig.
Ooh!
http://instantrimshot.com/
British show cattle must be sedated. Try anything like that with the cows I knew and you’d end up with broken bones either in the face or foot. It’s rather a vulnerable position, trying to milk a cow, and a cow has a considerable weight and strength advantage.
Incentives matter?
“Watering” stock just before the sale is such a problem that most stockyards require the stock to be separated from the owner for an hour before they enter the ring, with weighs before & after the ring. Sad.
Why does anyone need to investigate? Wouldn’t people who purchase the winning cows at auction figure this out and publicly scorn the cheaters, thus ruining their reputation? That is, won’t the market sort this out on it’s own? Or are we to believe that the market may be imperfect in such a way that oversight could be beneficial?
I bet the “100k” pound money figure is for cows that have proved their worth, like stud steer have, off the show field. I doubt any farmer is so naive as to bid for $100k for a cow he or she sees for the first time at a auction. Maybe that would be done by a ‘gentleman’ farmer with too much money to spend, but not by a real farmer I would imagine. So part of this story is journalist hype.
If this isn’t against the law, or more broadly considered animal cruelty, then I find it difficult to criticize the ALF (Animal Liberation Front) for ‘violating’ property rights.
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