Recycle Your Water Cows – Gross But Effective! — Dave’s Diary

It’s one of the stranger stories of scientific discovery that we’ve heard about in a long time.  If you saw Kevin Costner in Water World, then you’ll know just what I’m talking about when I say “personal recycling for consumption”. And yet, it does make sense…GROSS sense, but sense.The website for the University of Nebraska at Lincoln offers a section on beef cattle water requirements.  The Corn Huskers are the experts and they say an average consumption of a gallon a day for every 100 pounds of animal is about right, so an 800 pound cow would need 8 gallons or 16 gallons a day if she is giving milk.  Any way you slice it, cows require a lot of water.  But cows can be givers and not just takers.  Here’s how:

A team of scientists from Michigan State University has created a system which will perhaps allow the cow to recycle its own water.  They’ve come up with a machine that extracts water from cow poop that's fit for livestock to drink. Livestock/yes--people/ARE YOU CRAZY? Yuk! Yuk! Yuk!

The machine can extract about 50 gallons of water from every 100 gallons of manure, which in turn reduces the poop's environmental impact.

Ag experts say about 90 percent of manure is water but it contains large amounts of nutrients, carbon and pathogens that can have an environmental impact if not properly managed.

Called the McLanahan Nutrient Separation System, the technology will be of particular interest to farmers and ranchers in parts of the country where drought can be catastrophic.

If given the choice I’m sure cows would prefer cold fresh water, but then, they are cows and cow poo water would contribute to “the circle of life”!

(Newser)