Sorry, that’s not bullshit. I’ve been to too many factory dairies - the 24/7 parlor system types - where the cow moves from the parlor to a large covered shed to another large covered shed and back to the parlor. The days of family farms and cows gamboling in the pasture are rapidly disappearing, sorry to say, in the name of lower production costs and higher profits.
Cows let it go wherever they are whenever they need to, including the barn. And if they are parked for milking and they let it fly, it tends to land in areas where people may be walking. INAFarmer, but in the barns I’ve seen, there are pointy bars placed just above their backs so that if they arch, their back touches the sharp points and tends to discourage that. Apparently not arching makes the shit land in a better place, like the trough nearer the cow where god intended.
Sounds strange to me, but that’s what a farmer told me the bars were for.
Pigs, who are omnivores, have really smelly manure. I’d much rather be by a dairy farm than a pig farm.
In India they use the cow patties to patch up walls, or something. I’m not actually sure what they’re doing …they use the patties and stick them to walls and you’ll see whole lines of them.
(Let me take this moment to point out my gecko only poos in one corner of his tank. :D)
With all the answers provided I would suggest that what the cows leave/drop behind is usually referred to in the US as** “Cow Pies.”**
In the upper Rhone valley of Switzerland they accumulate the cow manure over the winter and come spring mix it with water to spray on the pastures to grow lush green grass to make the cows contented. You can easily locate the spots fertilized by daily droppings as they are where the grass grows tallest, and greenest fastest.
In India (and other places) the principle use for dried dung is as fuel. The smoke from all the dung cooking fires does give the evening air a distinct tang. The patties are stuck to walls so they’ll dry faster. I have several pictures of pyramids and obelisks of dried dung with elaborate designs formed into the surface. Apparently, they’re built by adding a thin layer of new dung after the previous layer had dried sufficiently. I saw lots of these on the road from Delhi to Dehra Dun. Some of them were a dozen feet high and four or five feet in diameter.
While cows and horses and sheep just poop everwhere, llamas and alpacas really do pick a spot for a latrine. You eventually get a hill of llama poop if you don’t haul it away regularly.
Yeah, but you get a feed lot with thousands of head of cattle (some have tens of thousands) in it at once, and they smell. At one time I think I read that Hereford, Texas had 3 million head of cattle move through the area feedlots annually. There are numerous feed lots (and pig farms) in the area surrounding Amarillo, you can smell a feedlot for miles if the wind is right.
Thank you. I started writing that and then realized I had no idea, why, really, they were sticking them to the walls. I just knew they did. 
Heh.
We had pigs when I was growing up the farm. Smells like money to me.
Now, sheep, on the other hand…
As a native of the Texas panhandle, I can personally vouch for that. Dried cowshit doesn’t have a strong odor. FRESH cowshit stinks.