Bovine Beacon: Glow sticks for 24-hour party pastures

Chris writes:

Looking for glow sticks I found this bizarre product on the Omniglow web page. It is called the "Bovine Beacon". The website is pretty vague about how it works, but apparently it is a self-adhesive glow stick placed on the cow's back above the tail that indicates to the farmer which of his animals are pregnant. It appears that the glow stick is activated by the weight of bull when he mounts the heifer! Yikes!

I'm going to build an entire pick-up artist routine around these and then market them at country-and-western bars.

Bovine Beacon product page [BovineBeacon.com]

[#1 posted by Halloween Jack , January 5, 2009 7:04 AM]

There are all sorts of fun things that you can find at large-animal supply places. Elbow-length latex gloves, big cans of J-Lube (a powdered ready-to-mix lubricant that is sometimes used by orgiasts for the sort of party that involves covering the floor with plastic sheeting), all sorts of stuff. I went into one of these stores in Fargo, and let me tell you what, it was a real eye-opener.

[#2 posted by dhasenan , January 5, 2009 7:05 AM]

Gee, back in my day we'd just put wet paint on the bulls.

[#3 posted by Enochrewt , January 5, 2009 7:30 AM]

I wonder if my parents use these for their cows? I might have to give them a heads up.

And yeah the farm supply stores have awesome things

[#4 posted by urshrew , January 5, 2009 9:18 AM]

Good, no one else used it:

The Bovine Method.

I said it, and I'm not taking it back.

[#5 posted by Anonymous , January 5, 2009 3:34 PM]

i want someone to write a updated return of the native where the ruddleman wanders the western united states following raves the cattle breeding season selling bovine beacons.

[#6 posted by aileinduinn , January 5, 2009 5:38 PM]

We called them "Hump Tags".

I have never seen them with chemlight in them, but when I worked on farms as a kid, they just had what I assumed were paint capsules because they would turn black or red if a heifer had been "jumped".

[#7 posted by jmcferran , January 6, 2009 7:14 AM]

I thought it said Bovine BACON. That would have definitely been better. MMMMmmmmm Bacon..... Beef Bacon mmmmmmm.....

[#8 posted by Daniel Rutter , January 10, 2009 3:53 PM]

I think these actually indicate when the cows are _in season_, not when a bull's mounted them. Most farms don't bother with actual bulls - they use artificial insemination instead, that lets you inseminate many cows with top-quality semen in one day. But cows will mount _each other_ when they're in season, and this indicates that they're ready for insemination.

(Homosexual behaviour is, of course, entirely unknown in the animal kingdom according to many very wise evangelists. So the only reason the cows perform this distasteful activity is as a favour to the farmer.)