55-Lb Hairball Found Inside Cow's Stomach

55-Lb Hairball Found Inside Cow's Stomach AG WORLD Ag World 18-3-22 If you're looking for somewhere to take the family this summer, you might want to consider a trip to the Finney County Historical Society Museum in Garden City, Kan. That's where you'll see something few people have ever seen before - a 55-lb. ball of hair taken from the stomach of a cow. Bigger than a basketball but with the density of a bowlingball, the gray, perfectly round hairball was discovered last summer in a cow slaughtered at a beef processing plant in Holcomb, Kan. The ball measures 37 in. around and feels like a piece of furry felt. When it first arrived at the museum, the ball was wet and smelled terrible. But now that it's dried out, it has almost no smell at all, says Mary Warren, museum director. Warren says most people think only cats get hairballs but she says they aren't uncommon in cattle, although they don't usually get larger than baseballs. Since cattle can't cough up hairballs like cats do, how-ever, the balls can continue to grow. When the meat plant workers brought the hairball in, Warren couldn't believe it was all hair so she had it X-rayed. The typical reaction of most visitors who see it is "Oh that poor cow!". Ripley's Believe It Or Not recently held a nationwide contest to find the world's largest hairball and the largest one they found was 33 in. dia. The Kansas hairball could have won the contest but Warren says the museum wanted to hang on to the ball because it fits in well with an exhibit they plan to open soon on the local beef industry. Contact: FARM SHOW Followup, Finney County Historical Society Museum, Garden City, Kan. 6784,6 (ph 346 272-3664).

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