Very good Mr T
you win a vegomatic and an all expenses paid trip to Brownsvill Texas
now how bout the cow question
So the cow thing (preferring to rest or graze along a N/S axis) sounded like old man farmer garbage to me. I had to look it up.
Turns out, it's statistically real!
A guy who was studying "naked mole rats", a tiny blind creature that lives life largely underground but always builds sleep nests at the south end of its burrow, wondered if humans would do the same thing if left undisturbed. He cranked up Google Earth because he wanted to see pictures of humans in tents. He was checking if they'd pitch them on a N/S axis for preference, too.
What he saw was cows. Instead of humans with tents, he zeroed in on cows. If a cow can choose its own resting place, like not being on curvy, lumpy sloped ground, and is sufficiently away from other cows (so social life functions don't take precedence), a cow will choose to orient itself on a N/S axis for eating or resting.
No one currently knows why. Ideas have been proposed, like not wanting to face the sun (east/west) or face the predominant east/west wind. However, that can't account for the statistic function. Other animals with migratory needs like birds and some bees do it. Bats sense the earth's magnetic field as well. A cow currently has no real obvious need, but may retain some vestigal sense left over from when they were truly wild, or possibly a different creature altogether.
My this is wondrous strange!
