DH asked me what do cows eat. AIBU to divorce him immediately?

[TheIckabog]

We were watching a program about a fancy hotel where they have their own cows. There was a clip of the cows being hand fed apples.

DH exclaimed in surprise ‘I didn’t know cows eat apples!’ He then paused and said, ‘What DO cows eat?’ whilst looking genuinely puzzled.

I said to him what do you think they do all day in the fields? They eat grass/hay etc, how do you not know this? DH then shrugged and said he’d never really thought about it.

He is a well educated intelligent man in his 40s. We also grew up/live in a place where dairy production accounts for a large percent of the export, so it’s not like he’s never seen a cow in a field or on a farm before.

I am aghast. AIBU to divorce him immediately? I really can’t see any other option to be honest

@Orchidsindoors

Even on countryfile it shows f**ucking cows in fields. Why are people not believing cows are in fields eating grass? Just crazy. Do they nit see them when they drive in the country? Theres fields full of them by me.

I believe there are, I have seen them, I have worked on dairy farm, I grew up on one.

There are also intensive dairy farms, where cows are in pens all day every day and do not eat grass. They never see grass. Some of these are inside, most are outside.

In winter even field cows are sheltered at night and fed pellets - often soy but occasionally meat based ones. They also get haylage and silage.

@Orchidsindoors

And flamingos...if you ever see a tourist brochure of Wales, you can almost guarantee there will be a picture of a cow, IN A FIELD!!!! Same for most of the UK

I don't believe that there are any intensive beef units in Wales (although there certainly are elsewhere in the UK) but it is not hard to see that a cow grazing pasture is a rather more picturesque image than several hundred of them corralled in pens in an intensive unit.

@Lyricallie @NiceGerbil I GREW UP on a farm?where my dad would look after another farmers flock of sheep once a year, and I didn't know till today their tails were docked! I can't believe the length of the tails I've just googled!
I'm SHOOK.

Only on mumsnet would people argue so vitriolically about whether cows eat grass

@Orchidsindoors my friend is a dairy farmer. They tell me 20% of UK dairy cows live indoors all year round.

@NoParticularPattern
And not all cows are out in the field in the U.K.- ours aren’t!

Are you a farmer? Where do you keep your cows then? Or do you mean, in the area where you live, as opposed to "your" cows?

@riteaid true, but as a lot of comments on here are despairing at people not knowing where their food comes from, might as well extend that, people should really know the conditions their food has very possibly been raised in rather than being tricked that it's all happy days. Cows SHOULD all get to eat grass.

but occasionally meat based ones Have you got a source for that?

*My cousin's DH, a science teacher who delivered high school sex education, believed women's breasts grew when men felt them.

So the bigger the breasts, the more attention they'd had, possibly from a number of different men.
A right-handed man must be careful to also use his other hand so his wife's breasts wouldn't grow unevenly.*

I have heard this asserted by quite a few men. But in those cases it was a ploy. Or at least I assumed it was!

Years ago, when I went on holiday with a friend to Italy, we spent a day in Rome. She asked me in all seriousness, not in a sarcastic way, 'Is the Pope Catholic?' She actually claimed to be a Catholic, so I couldn't believe she was being serious.

My husband grew up thinking dogs were male and cats were female.

I love this so much, and also spider baby

Can also confirm that @Orchidsindoors is 100% right. I've lived all over mid and west Wales. Cows are always in fields. I've also been in plenty of barns and no, they don't house thousands of cows. Mainly just farm equipment and extra food stocks.

[quote Jocasta2018]@cautionhot
a lot of countries don't allow UK blood donors because of mad cow - Canada, US
You just have to have lived in the UK between 1980-mid1990s - not just born here. Quite frightening when you think about it.
[/quote]
I was given blood in 1998 after having DS. I am no longer eligible to give blood in case the blood I was given had CJD. OK for them to give it me though!!

I had to explain why we kept the eggs in the chicken house rather than our fridge

And why the pigs were called sausages and bacon

Both to the adults tourists that were visiting. I also had requests to stop the birds (wild birds) singing in the morning as it wakes them up.

This thread is an eye-opener as to why this country wet itself over a disease with a 99.97 survival rate and thought that a lockdown would cure it.....

My younger sister once asked what the meat was we were having for dinner and was told it was beef. She then asked where does beef come from? On being told it came from cows she gave a scornful laugh and said don't be silly. Cows don't lay beef. They lay milk.

To be fair I think she was only about three at the time

@derxa

but occasionally meat based ones Have you got a source for that?

Not to hand, but I know the feed we used was a soy, maize & chicken mix. After the mad cow stuff beef based cattle feed was discontinued (we never knowingly used it) in '98 I think and all feed was labelled to say it complied with the new regs. Over the next decade it mainly moved to soy as it was cheaper but meat stuff still exists, it wasn't banned.

I once told one of the DC that the carrier bags blowing in the field we passed in Norfolk was where Tesco grew their bags for life.

Some hours went by before DC questioned this and realised the hundreds of bags in the field were crow scarers.

DC was 12 at the time 😂

My grandmother thought keeping scissors near the window attracted lightning.

I'd forgotten that one!! I remember being told it as a kid.

@BaconsLaw

My husband grew up thinking dogs were male and cats were female.

I thought the same.. until I was about 6.

I've got horses and there are a surprising amount of people who ask if Shetland ponies are babies and grow into shire horses. They probably all run in the grand national as teenagers?🙈

Also my grandma though it got dark at night 'because of the night clouds'

Wee educated doesn't mean has common sense

DH worked for a council and once had to build a new park. In the spec was a lake. I'd seen the buy list for plants and benches and the like and I questioned where he'd buy the ducks from.

I'd never really thought about it until then that ducks found ponds and that councils didn't buy them and put them on themselves. Having a pond of my own and wild ducks, I now realise I was being a bit stupid there 😁

wee should be well - I really should spell check -

I think you'll find that the feeding of cattle on the prion-rich diet of other cows has been illegal since the outbreak of BSE. So no need to scare monger.