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* LLM Farm Vets…
A cow walks on the tips of her toes and the equivalent of our nails (the hoof wall) bears the majority of her weight. … The trimming length for a typical dairy cow’s toe should be 85mm long [3.3 inches]
According to PetKeen.com, dairy cows weigh between 900 and 1,600 pounds. That’s a whole lot of weight on those little feet.
* Now, let’s move on to this photo of the dismantling of the Illinois State Fair butter cow, which caused quite a stir…
RIP the 2023 butter cow 🧈🐄 pic.twitter.com/gCt7lFL0Xy
— 217Problems (@217Problems) August 21, 2023
Not trying to pick on Ben because hundreds and hundreds of people had the very same reaction…
I must be gullible, but I thought the butter cow was actually 800 pounds of all butter… I feel scammed… https://t.co/7fU94Qcxbw
— Ben Szalinski (@BenSzalinski) August 21, 2023
The butter on that cow already weighs 500-800 pounds. A full cow made out of butter would weigh much more, perhaps even more than a real dairy cow.
Also, this is butter. It ain’t steel. How do you even get it to stand up and hold together for days on end without a frame? The process is kinda like decoupage, only with butter.
* I just figured people knew this, but nope…
i can’t believe it
— (f; lcd computer) (@sspaceb0y) August 23, 2023
* Charlotte Clymer did some research…
But there are only four state fairs that regularly feature a butter cow sculpture: Illinois, Iowa, Ohio, and Wisconsin. Although Iowa’s butter cow sculpture is probably the most legen-dairy, Ohio was the first to do it in 1903, eight years before Iowa.
All four use a similar process: a frame of various materials, mostly wire-and-steel mesh, covered in layers of sculpted butter. Of course, the more you think about it, the more this makes sense. We’re usually talking 600-800 lbs. of butter with the frame, alone, so a solid butter heifer would probably be cowed by the laws of physics.
Never assume anything.
posted by Rich Miller
Thursday, Aug 24, 23 @ 12:59 pm
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If there weren’t a commercial non-dairy product called, “I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter” I bet fewer people would express astonishment about this.
Comment by Socially DIstant watcher Thursday, Aug 24, 23 @ 1:03 pm
“…so a solid butter heifer…”
I think she’s passed the heifer stage if she is being milked
Comment by Anon221 Thursday, Aug 24, 23 @ 1:11 pm
I learned about this dirty little secret years ago, a fraudulent representation I thought then, and it almost destroyed my faith in everything that is good in this World.
Comment by fs Thursday, Aug 24, 23 @ 1:12 pm
The worst part is that they reuse the butter for years.
Comment by Bruce( no not him) Thursday, Aug 24, 23 @ 1:14 pm
===a fraudulent representation I thought then===
Wait until you hear about how dairy cows also have internal infrastructure. Plus skin to hold it all together.
Comment by Rich Miller Thursday, Aug 24, 23 @ 1:16 pm
Further evidence that common sense isn’t so common.
Comment by Hannibal Lecter Thursday, Aug 24, 23 @ 1:18 pm
Over the years of observing ILGA floor action, I have suspected several of the quieter lawmakers were actually made of wire mesh expertly covered in butter.
Comment by Linus Thursday, Aug 24, 23 @ 1:19 pm
Because “Butter Covering A Wire and Mesh Frame Cow” doesn’t roll off the tongue.
Comment by Montrose Thursday, Aug 24, 23 @ 1:23 pm
It might be confusion with Butter Princesses which are sculpted from a solid block of butter
Comment by frayed cat Thursday, Aug 24, 23 @ 1:23 pm
I am in the category of “didn’t know but never thought about it and not surprised or shocked.”
Comment by Pot calling kettle Thursday, Aug 24, 23 @ 1:25 pm
Another interesting/useless fact, Iowa has been recycling its sculpture butter…
The butter that the cow is made out of has been being used since 2005, and seeing this cow is a tradition for some Iowans.
https://tinyurl.com/5jex2e62
Comment by Donnie Elgin Thursday, Aug 24, 23 @ 1:29 pm
==Wait until you hear about how dairy cows also have internal infrastructure. Plus skin to hold it all together.==
To be fair, I was about 6 years old, and I’m pretty sure Santa was equally as shocked and disturbed over it when I told him about it a few months later.
Comment by fs Thursday, Aug 24, 23 @ 1:31 pm
=== Iowa has been recycling its sculpture butter===
Illinois does, too.
Comment by Rich Miller Thursday, Aug 24, 23 @ 1:32 pm
Iowa and Illinois have the same sculptor, Sarah Pratt, who learned from Norma Lyon who was the original master.
Comment by Chicagonk Thursday, Aug 24, 23 @ 1:51 pm
This would be a great opportunity for: “I can’t believe it’s not butter!”
Comment by Blackhawk Thursday, Aug 24, 23 @ 1:51 pm
The armature (structure beneath the butter) is the “secret sauce” of butter sculptors and they are normally very proprietary about anyone seeing the armature until it’s got butter over it.
If you want another butter fact to blow your mind, the years before the Illinois butter cow was in the 3-d rotating freezer case, it was displayed across the way behind one sheet of glass in the wall display coolers. Which means you would never get to see the half of the butter cow not facing the glass. So they would often skip covering that non-visible half. You were getting a half a butter cow all those years, really. Being Illinois, I’m sure someone was making bank off the missing butter, lol.
Comment by Give Us Barabbas Thursday, Aug 24, 23 @ 1:53 pm
I thought it was all butter, but your explanation for why it could not be seems reasonable to me. I am not disillusioned by this (to me) discovery.
Comment by Murph Thursday, Aug 24, 23 @ 1:55 pm
Butter cow is also an analogy for the state budget; a limited amount has to be spread thin all over an ugly and sketchy underpinning to make something that looks real, and the place where it’s done often stinks.
Comment by Give Us Barabbas Thursday, Aug 24, 23 @ 1:59 pm
I’m glad they reuse the butter. Wasteful to throw it out every year. Dairy cows work hard enough as it is.
Comment by Sir Reel Thursday, Aug 24, 23 @ 1:59 pm
==I am in the category of “didn’t know but never thought about it and not surprised or shocked.”==
That’s where I am as well. It didn’t occur to me that it wasn’t all butter, but I understand why it’s not. Can’t we all continue to agree that it is pretty neat?
Comment by Leslie K Thursday, Aug 24, 23 @ 2:01 pm
More useless Butter Cow Trivia…
“As in years past, 13 hearts have been hidden between the two displays to signify the 13 essential nutrients found naturally in milk”
https://www.illinois.gov/news/press-release.26827.html
Comment by Donnie Elgin Thursday, Aug 24, 23 @ 2:10 pm
I have to admit, the child in me hurt to see that metal frame….Yes, I really did believe it was completely made of butter. It has lost some of the magic.
Comment by Near West Side Thursday, Aug 24, 23 @ 2:24 pm
New meaning to screening the process.
Comment by Norseman Thursday, Aug 24, 23 @ 2:31 pm
“Also, this is butter. It ain’t steel.”
The Venn diagram of people surprised by this, and people who don’t cook for themselves - is an overlapping circle.
Comment by TheInvisibleMan Thursday, Aug 24, 23 @ 2:33 pm
Butter Decoupage will be appearing at one of the smaller stages at the fair next year.
Kind of a folk trio, they do a heck of Orleans tribute show.
Comment by OneMan Thursday, Aug 24, 23 @ 2:42 pm
=== Iowa has been recycling its sculpture butter===
Illinois does, too.
“Recycled” butter sculpts better. The butter looses some of the air in it and dries out a little. As it becomes more dense over the years it makes it more conducive to the process.
Comment by Cool Papa Bell Thursday, Aug 24, 23 @ 3:02 pm
“There’s only one small catch…the 100% Butter Cow never happened. It’s all a lie, a fantastic $30 billion dollar hoax…” — parody of the movie trailer for “Capricorn One”, about a faked mission to Mars.
Comment by thisjustinagain Thursday, Aug 24, 23 @ 4:15 pm