Why do cows lick car door handles?

[DancingBear]

This is a serious question - no joke. If you park a car in the vicinity of bovines, they will wander over and lick the door handles, windows, etc. like crazy. Not the body of the car - just door handles and windshields. Anyone know why?

BTW, this is a GREAT thing to do to someone you don't like. I once worked with an IT guy I couldn't stand, and he parked his (revered) Ford Taurus at my house while we went off to do an IT site survey one day. I convinced him to park in the field below my house, knowing that my bovine friends were in the area.

We returned to a giant Taurus-sickle, courtesy of the cows.

I feigned ignorance.

[MuseRider]

1. Horses do it too

but I do not know why. I have had a horse lick the paint off my truck though so I guess it isn't the same thing. Sorry, makes no sense to me either.

[htuttle]

2. Probably just for the salt

You'd leave traces of salty oil from your hands on the handles.

Don't know what's up with the windshields, though. Maybe they feel 'neat' to lick. Cows are weird like that sometimes...

[hlthe2b]

4. Yes... salt on your hands transfers to the handles.....

The Car Guys had a caller report on a horse that ate the steering wheel from her car parked adjacent to the pasture--same thing....

[MadAsHell]

3. One word - salt ...

Unlike humans most animals don't have ready access to salt and they will go to some length looking for it. Porcupines will eat doors on cabins or the handles of boat oars to get at the salt left behind by the hands that used them.

[wicket]

13. On the farm

On the farm, we keep a block of salt in each feeding stall, the cows love it.

[dawg]

5. Cause they are hand-a-licious!

Try it sometime - they're yummy. :silly:

[NightTrain]

6. Same reason I do.

Because they can! :crazy:

[DancingBear]

8. With talent like that,

you must have to chase women away with a stick! :) :)

[DancingBear]

7. OK - I get the salt rationale - but why windshields? n/t

[MuseRider]

12. Do you suppose,

and this is way out there but.....cows usually get salt and mineral blocks to lick. They spend a lot of time doing it. Is it possible they just like to lick stuff that feels good? Perhaps it is the bugs on the windshield? HA! I am perplexed. I have spent a lot of time trying to figure out cows as a cutter but they are strange beasts. The door handle salt makes sense but windshields........hmm. Cows be strange creatures.

[DancingBear]

14. I'm open to suggestions

They indeed be strange creatures. I remember early in my cow career (not that I have any cow career to speak of, save watching them from my porch and occasionally having to try and move them out of the road) going over to see a calf, then realizing mommy was a little upset at the visitor.

I learned after jumping up on a flatbed trailer that cows are NOWHERE near as slow as I had surmised.

[MuseRider]

16. Ask anyone who cuts cattle

how much air can usually be found between their butt and the saddle how slow cows are! Those suckers can move, especially when you have separated them from the herd. Mommy cows do get upset, don't let those big brown eyes fool ya. I often wonder. It must be difficult to run like that with those big, full udders hanging there.

[ashling]

9. My Scottish Highlands

used to rub their horns on the side of my car & pickup.

A caller on Click & Clack told of a horse that ate the steering wheel cover off of her car.

[Champion Jack]

10. To get to the other side?

OK
I give up

[welshTerrier2]

11. According to the "Herd on the Street" column in my local paper

In their special annual cow edition called: Auto-moo-tive Tidbits, the reason cows lick car door handles is that if they licked the muffler instead, they could burn their tongues ...

[TroubleMan]

15. LOL..ironic that the car was a "Taurus"

nt

[baldguy]

17. They just love practical jokes!

Wouldn't know it to look at them, huh?