The Sweet Smell of Cow

I'm in a story-telling mood today. This one involves me, the BF, and four jars of rumen fluid.

As part of my research, I need to find out the digestibility of the different feeds in my trial. So I lug the Daisy incubator to the beef center, weight out 400 little bags of sample (fun fun!) and truck off to collect rumen fluid.


Sticking your arm into a cow's rumen on a freezing cold winter day is quite nice. It's about 100 degrees inside the cow, but about 20 degrees outside. So as you stand in your shirtsleeves, one arm is toasty warm while the other wants you to hurry up so we can get the fuck back inside.

With help, get the rumen fluid (and keep it warm in the dead of winter!) and get it into the jars. Jars go into the daisy where they are kept warm and rotating for 48 hours.

However, on the first run, 48 hours later was in the middle of a snow storm. The beef center road was closed, and I couldn't get out there. So I call the guys out there and ask if they could put my jars in the fridge.

The cold would kill the microbes, and digestion would cease.

The next day, it's sunny, the road is plowed, and I manage to convince the BF to come out the to beef center with me to drain the jars and bring the bags back to the lab for drying.

Now, the BF starts complaining at the smell of fresh clean horse, so this is quite the feat. We go out there, and he's wandering around the big barn while I do my thing.

I take the jars out of the fridge. I open the jars.

UGH!

Now, fresh rumen fluid smells kind of like cow poo, but without the "poo" quality, if that makes any sense. Basically, it smells, but it's not unbearable.

The jars after 48 hours of incubation and 24 hours of refrigeration smelled like the remains of cow pie stew fresh out of the oven with a dead rat for garnish.

Across the barn I hear, "WTF is that SMELL!" And then in a minute, "Oh, God! It's getting worse!" And finally, "It's coming from you! Dear Lord!"

The BF was not appreciative of the new smell I discovered. Even though I thought it stunk too, I took the opportunity to make fun of him and his non-cowified olfactory senses.

It's too bad really. Since I had more than one run to do, I came home smelling like rumen fluid every other day for a couple weeks.

The smell really does not wash off, no matter how hard you try. You have to wait for the skin on that hand and arm to die.

So far I've introduced my city-boy to horses, cows, rumen fluid and pigs. Up next I think is sheep. Poor boy. He aught to know by now though that if he wants to lead a life free of animal smell, I'm not the girl for him!