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I Forge Iron

What are these?


Jason Preglow

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If you were in cattle country and they were magnetized I would guess magnetic bolus' for cows. They sit in the bottom of the first stomach and catch stray bits of metal that the cow eats and keeps it there instead of letting it pass through the rest of the intestinal tract. We've used them a couple times when we put our cows in a pasture that has alot of old fencing in it. 

Non-magnetized... perhaps a bolus to help keep an iron horse running strong

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could be for a magnetic stirrer used to mix chemical solutions.  Drop them in the solution to be mixed, and when the stirrer is turned on, it has a magnetic in the base that spins and this makes this one spin.  I've got some about 2 inches long.  They come in various sizes for various sizes of beakers and other glassware

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6 hours ago, arkie said:

how do you get it out?

You dont. I just sits there collecting. As the bits of metal rust, The rust passes without harm, but the bolus stays. You could gather it at harvest time, but it is generally considered a consumable. We would check to see if we had bolussed a cow by bringing a compass, if it pointed moo north, then the cow had been done.

I've seen the scrap iron pile at our local mobile butchers home shop. You'd be surprised what a cow will swallow. Along with the expected bits of wire and nails I've seen fencing pliers, pocket knives and a couple horse (pony) shoes in that pile, all still stuck to the bolus'.

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True that Shabumi. I grew up in my father’s slaughter house more literally true than I would like to imagine. Emptying stomach contents was part of the process. Almost always in dairy cows as I recall. I think beef cattle were usually harvested before being affected by “wire”. 

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Yeah, they swallow first and chew later.

We dont have to worry about the steers or the sale calves, but we have to take precautions so our mother cows don't get hardware disease. They free range on forestry ground (legally) in the summer, and in their range is a ghost town and 2 other town sites that had burned or decayed away, so you never know what they will pick up. 

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19 hours ago, Shabumi said:

We would check to see if we had bolussed a cow by bringing a compass, if it pointed moo north, then the cow had been done.

I've seen the scrap iron pile at our local mobile butchers home shop. You'd be surprised what a cow will swallow. Along with the expected bits of wire and nails I've seen fencing pliers, pocket knives and a couple horse (pony) shoes in that pile, all still stuck to the bolus'.

That's about the craziest thing(s) I've ever heard!  Never leave home without your compass.  Learnt somthin' new today. 

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