Photo courtesy of Sophia Silacci

  Big, beefy, and rectangular shaped. Cows surround San Luis Obispo County land, and more often than not, the homes of San Luis Obispo High School students.

But do students even know what cow tipping is, or better yet have they tried it before? Well hopefully the answer to the second question is no because cow tipping is illegal and proven quite impossible. 

  For those students who don’t know, cow tipping is the practice of sneaking up on a cow while it is sleeping and pushing it over, often on a degree so it continues to fall, a right of passage in some areas.

  “I own cows, and I would never tip one. They are so cute and that’s mean…but funny,” said senior Lilah May.

 Students who have experience with cows or just have common sense, know that cows don’t sleep standing up, a common mix-up between cows and horses. Let’s also not forget that cows on average weigh around two thousand pounds. Let’s put that number in perspective. Fourteen year old teenage boys can bench press around 67 pounds, not even four percent of that overall cows weight. 

  So where did the myth of cow tipping begin? This myth lays on the basis that cows are, “slow-moving, dim-witted, and weak-legged, thus easily pushed over without much force,” said the very reliable Wikipedia page for Cow Tipping.

This is entirely untrue thus the myth is upheld. 

  “Coming from a family who has a hundred years experience raising dairy cattle, I find it highly entertaining that people believe cow tipping is real. Not gonna lie, it also kind of drains my faith in society. The average cow weighs about 1,200 pounds- so good luck pushing one over. Cows also sleep laying down… so take a seat cow tippers,” said senior Sophia Silacci.  

  With that, we wish our condolences to those who take on the useless task of cow tipping.