Knickers the cow has grown himself right out of the slaughterhouse.
The Australian cow has grown to a height of six feet and four inches tall and tips the scales 3,000 pounds — the same weight as a small car — and is so big that he couldn’t fit into the slaughterhouse. As owner Geoff Pearson told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation , the 7-year-old Holstein Friesian is about double the height of the average dairy cow.
“He was too big to go into the export plant’s chain,” Pearson said. “We have a high turnover of cattle, and he was lucky enough to stay behind.”
Video of Knickers has found viral interest online, with news outlets across the world covering the enormous cow and many people sharing pictures of him towering over the other cows on the farm. Much of the attention has been outside of Australia, with USA Today one of the many American outlets to report on the gigantic cow. The report noted that the original picture of Knickers from an Australian news outlet quickly garnered thousands of re-tweets.
Since Knickers has earned a pass from the dinner plate, Pearson said he has put the giant cow to work in other ways. Knickers towers over all the other cows in Pearson’s farm, so the giant helps to lead and coach the other cattle, the farmer shared.
“You’ll put him in a paddock and all the other cattle seem to get attracted to him,” Pearson told ABC. “Whenever he wants to get up and start walking, there’s a trail of hundreds of cattle following him.”
That is helpful for the newer cows to learn their way around the farm and to stay in order, Pearson shared. It’s been a good return for the farmer, who said he initially spent $400 for the cow. Knickers has been useful around the farm, where Pearson owns 20,000 cows and could use a giant to help lead them.
Person told the BBC News that the giant cow’s name came from one of his first friends on the farm, a Brahman steer whose name was “Bra.”
“So we (had) bra and knickers,” the farmer told the British news outlet.
Pretty sure I’m first on Knickers The Large Australian Cow. Feels great to break a huge story like this! https://t.co/6Izf72UWah
— David Roth (@david_j_roth) November 27, 2018
Knickers, a Holstein Friesian steer, is a bovine behemoth that sticks out from the herd. #7News pic.twitter.com/oazuaW0SWj
— 7NEWS Brisbane (@7NewsBrisbane) November 27, 2018
Knickers still has quite a ways to go to become the biggest cow of them all. As Perth Now reported, the tallest steer in the world is an ox named Bellino from Italy that stands nearly six feet and eight inches tall.
