Cow dung is the waste product of bovine animal species. These species include domestic cattle ("cows"), bison ("buffalo"), yak and water buffalo. Cow dung is the undigested residue of plant matter which has passed through the animal's gut. The resultant faecal matter is rich in minerals. Colour ranges from greenish to blackish, often darkening soon after exposure to air. It is also known in the American southeast and southwest as "cow pies".
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Cow dung (usually combined with soiled bedding and urine) is often used as manure (agricultural fertilizer). If not recycled into the soil by species such as earthworms and dung beetles, cow dung can dry out and remain on the pasture, creating an area of grazing land which is unpalatable to livestock.
In many parts of the developing world, caked and dried cow dung is used as fuel.
Dung may also be collected and used to produce biogas to generate electricity and heat. The gas is rich in methane and is used in rural areas of India/Pakistan and elsewhere to provide a renewable and stable source of electricity.
Cow dung is also used to line the floor and walls of buildings owing to its insect repellent properties for some types of insects (not flies or dung beetles). In central Africa, Maasai villages have burned cow dung inside to repel mosquitos. In cold places, cow dung is used to line the walls of rustic houses as a cheap thermal insulator.
Cow dung is also an optional ingredient in the manufacture of adobe mud brick housing depending on the availability of materials at hand.[1]
A deposit of cow dung is referred to in American English as a "cow pie," and in British English as a cowpat[2]. Also known as "cow chips" when dry, it is used in the practice of "cow chip throwing" popularized in Beaver, Oklahoma in 1970 [3][4]. Another game is Cow Chip Bingo.
Cow dung provides food for a wide range of animal and fungus species, which break it down and recycle it into the food chain and into the soil.
In areas where cattle (or other mammals with similar dung) are not native, there are often also no native species which can break down their dung, and this can lead to infestations of pests such as flies and parasitic worms. In Australia, dung beetles from elsewhere have been introduced to help recycle the cattle dung back into the soil (see the Australian Dung Beetle Project and Dr. George Bornemissza)[5]
A buffalo chip, also called a meadow muffin, is the name for a large, flat, dried piece of dung deposited by the American Bison. Well dried buffalo chips were among the few things that could be collected and burned on the prairie and were used by the Plains Indians, settlers and pioneers, and homesteaders as a source of cooking heat and warmth.
Bison dung is sometimes referred to by the name nik-nik. This word is a borrowing from the Sioux language (which probably originally borrowed it from a northern source). In modern Sioux, nik-nik can refer to the feces of any bovine, including domestic cattle. It has also come to be used, especially in Lakota, to refer to lies or broken promises (especially by the U.S. government). It probably attained this sense by association with the English term "bullshit".