Very Important Question

[Fizl]

No... I\'m not proposing to anyone, but I do have a question that I have asked all the people in my office and have yet to get a satisfactory answer to -

If cows and sheep are in the same field together for long enough, do they learn to understand what the other side are saying?

If a unilingual person was stuck in a house with a person of another language for 6 months, I\'m sure they would pick up a bit of the lingo, so how about on the domestic cattle front?

Shaz

 

[marineboy]

Do cattle and sheep communicate at all verbally? Do they understand what is said? Understand what I\'m saying????lollol

 

[Fizl]

Wellllll......the big ones go moooooo, and the little fluffy ones go baaaaaaaa - so no

Now I\'m not expecting the cows to baa and the sheep to moo, but i feel there must be some understanding going on after all that time in the field!

Shaz

 

[marineboy]

Perhaps in general vectors...fear, unrest, danger.

These creatures are specialists, aren\'t they? As opposed to generalists. They probably do what they do quite well without having aptitude for doing much else. Aside from having the ground of being grazers, do the animals have much else in common?

Aside, of course, from tasting very nice to use meat-eaters.lollol

 

[frenchkid]

Well for the loked up in a house exemple, you wouldn\'t just pick up a bit of the language, you\'d be billingual. Much sooner then 6 months actually, I\'d say in a bout a 1 month you\'d be full billinguale

As for th sheeps and cows ..... I wonder what they must think of you at the office now

 

[Fizl]

They think I obviously have too much time to think about these things (they usually come to me when I am on the train taking a break from working on the laptop).

I have also been wondering if there is a grey breed of domestic cow - I\'ve seen white, black, black and white and various shades of brown, but no grey cows!

Shaz

 

[minimaker]

There was an article in a popular science magazine on why dogs and cats often don\'t get along. It\'s because their bodylanguage don\'t match and are sometimes contrary to eachothers When they grow up together they can get along since they have learned eachothers language. Perhaps it can work that way with sheep and cattle too. Though, dogs and cats are probably a bit more intelligent.

I read llamas have been added to sheep herds to protect them (they are a tad more aggressive than sheep). Llamas seem to accept the sheep as their herd ok.

 

[Fizl]

Originally posted by minimaker

I read llamas have been added to sheep herds to protect them (they are a tad more aggressive than sheep). Llamas seem to accept the sheep as their herd ok.

I\'ve seen that on TV somewhere as well, the sheep will follow them about in the normal sheep mentality! Do you think cows are a little too independent for the sheeps liking?

Shaz

 

[marineboy]

BlueGrey cattle:

link here

 

[Fizl]

Thank you, thats one ticked off Just the communications to go!

Shaz

 

[marineboy]

Here\'s another one, Shaz:

Icelandic cow,sea-grey color, rather rare type, this one named Sleikja (\"to lick\"), likes to be petted (communicates with humans?)???

 

[MarkusTay]

Thread Hijack Alert!

Since meat-eating HAS been mentioned, this is not quite a a full-blown hi-jack...

Bare with me, there is a question at the end...

On Memorial Day Morning (last Monday) I was driving to a HUGE family/friend barbecue. My 16 yr old son and his friend were the only two riding with me because I had the gas grill in the back of my truck. My son likes to talk privately to me when the rest of the family isn\'t around, and he started telling me about this girl he\'s been hanging with. He told me she is very nice, pretty, is a vegetarian, and is still a virgin. I said I thought she sounded very sweet; but being the \'jerk\' I am I asked why he would want to take out a girl who didn\'t... ya know... do anything. He told me she gives oral sex (he didn\'t say it that way of course, but I am trying to keep this at least semi-decent). I said \"yeah, but she can\'t \'swallow\'. He insisted that she does. I told him \'then she couldn\'t possibly be a vegetarian\", to which he swore up and down that she was. We argued until we got to the park and started enjoying ourselves. After several (many) beers, i decided to ask everyone at the party (there were about 70 people there). Almost everyone had a different answer, and most didn\'t bother to answer me at all. So I decided to ask my intelligent, well-meaning, good natured Forum friends for the answer.

So, can a girl \'swallow\' and still be a vegetarian? ???

Sorry if you think this subject is gross, but I really need an answer to this mystery.

And like I said, it is related to Marineboy\'s \'carnivore\' comment...

oh, and about the cow/sheep thing... I doubt either is intelligent enough to even be aware of the others existance.

 

[marineboy]

Hold da kaeft, Markus, you are a card!

Okay, the vegetarian thingie....vegetarianism usually involves some ethic about not eating dead animals, does it? Sounds like whatever that girl was eating at the time was pretty much alive....don\'t see any conflict.lollollol

 

[MarkusTay]

Brilliant! No one at the party thought of that!

See, I knew a group of intellectuals could come up with an explanation. lol

 

[Fizl]

Originally posted by marineboy
Hold da kaeft, Markus, you are a card!

Okay, the vegetarian thingie....vegetarianism usually involves some ethic about not eating dead animals, does it? Sounds like whatever that girl was eating at the time was pretty much alive....don\'t see any conflict.lollollol

If that was the case, wouldn\'t she be happy to eat oysters? They aren\'t dead if you eat them raw.

Shaz

 

[marineboy]

Yeah, but I\'m wasn\'t chowing down on barbecued beef and guzzling beerwhen I came up the answer.... rather would\'ve been and not thought of it, though!lollol

 

[Legacy Account]

More to the point, are their any inter-species \'intimate relations\'!!

Stranger things have happened....

 

[marineboy]

If that was the case, wouldn\'t she be happy to eat oysters? They aren\'t dead if you eat them raw.

Shaz

That still involves the dead of a living creature, Shaz. Sperm aren\'t really alive, are they? ???lollol

 

[Fizl]

Well they are...but then so is celery! Its whether they are an animal or not thats the important point

Shaz

 

[marineboy]

Its whether they are an animal or not thats the important point

Good point...only half a set of chromosomes, but containing animal protein.... I dunno!???

On a purely hedonistic level, I would hope that this question never arises among the sexually active female vegetarian population...