Here’s a weird magnet fact for your week━somewhere, there’s a magnet in the stomach of a cow. Magnets are commonly used by farmers and ranchers to prevent Hardware disease, also called bovine traumatic reticuloperitonitis. Because cows do not discern objects with their mouth when eating and often swallow food whole, they are prone to eat dangerous metal objects like nails or wire. If one of these sharp objects were to pass through the reticulum it can puncture vital organs, causing pain and even death depending on where and how far the object travels. Because the stomach is so close to the heart in cattle, the most serious cases of Hardware disease are the result of an object piercing the heart and causing failure.

Prevention of Hardware disease is the smartest ways to fight it. To prevent cows from developing Hardware disease as a result of the ingestion of inedible objects, sometimes farmers will place a single “cow magnet” in the stomach of a cow. The magnet then attracts any metal objects and prevents them from travelling further through the body. However, this isn’t the only method of prevention. Beef Magazine says that the most important step, “is to keep wire and other metal objects out of feed.” In order to do this, many animal food processing systems use a magnetic device to filter out any possible metal debris.

When diagnosing Hardware disease, one of the first things that veterinarians will do is check for the presence of a cow magnet. Oftentimes, veterinarians will place a compass beside a cow’s stomach to detect the magnetic field.

Although there may be a magnet in a cow, magnets should never be ingested by humans. Doing so can result in choking, harm to organs and even death, which is especially the case if two or more magnets are ingested at once. Because magnets will attract and pull towards each other, the presence of two or more can pinch organs and break bones. Even when it comes to cows or any other animal, a veterinary professional should be consulted before doing anything with a magnet.