In the dead of night unsuspecting cows are flipped over by groups of giggling friends and left on their sides, officially tipped.
Or not.
A zoology professor and a student at the University of British Columbia say they have disproved the decades-old myth of cow-tipping.
“I thought it was a good idea (for the student) to try and take on something like an urban myth to see if you can put it into permanent bed,” said professor Margo Lillie.
Student Tracy Boechler chose to debunk the rural myth in Lillie’s zoology physics class, coming up with the idea after being asked to choose a biology myth and challenge it with science.
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“I had not heard of cow tipping up until that point; I’m an urban girl,” Lillie said.
Stories of cows toppling over with a good, swift push are a part of rural folklore. Lillie said there are two major factors that would jam a fork into cow-tipping plans.
“If someone’s going to push you over, you’re going to brace your feet, put them wider apart and it’s going to make you harder to tip over. The cow is going to do the exact same thing,” Lillie said.
Boechler learned that taller cows with a narrow stance would be easier to tip than shorter cows with a broad stance. She found it would take at least four people weighing at least 67 kilograms each to turn a cow udder-up.
Lillie said the four people could only tip a cow if it was completely oblivious to its nocturnal visitors.
“Yes, we can push it over if the cow obligingly stands there. Cows don’t obligingly stand there; it’s going to move.”
The clueless cow is the myth’s biggest fallacy. Lillie said many people wrongly believe cows sleep standing up, suggesting no resistance to pushing.
“They don’t sleep standing up, they sleep laying down. You’ve got to creep up on them and not let them know that you’re coming,” Lillie said. “The cow is going to wander off if it sees weird people coming.”
She said the legend usually involves a few beers beforehand, making the chances of a sneak approach even more unlikely.
An extra two people would be needed to tip a cow that braced itself but did not walk away.
Since the research was completed, Lillie said she has been bombarded with international attention.
“One guy e-mailed me from Hawaii and gave me a strategy,” Lillie said.
“He said you’ve got to be smarter than the cow; so he said you have to put people on both sides.”
Either way, Lillie said the cow’s biology would make the unusual phenomena difficult.
“I’ve learned a lot about cow tipping and a lot of the people that do deal with cows say there’s just no way you’re going to be able to creep up on a cow out in the field, so forget it.”
Another project in the research class involved the feasibility of Spiderman really being able to swing on spider silk.
