Cow dung

In India, it is dried into cake like shapes called upla or kanda, and used as replacement for firewood for cooking in chulah (traditional kitchen stove).

The gas is rich in methane and is used in rural areas of India and Pakistan and elsewhere to provide a renewable and stable (but unsustainable) source of electricity.

[citation needed] From 20 July 2020, State Government of Chhattisgarh India started buying cow dung under the Godhan Nyay Yojana scheme.

In parts of Africa, floors of rural huts are smeared with cow dung: this is believed to improve interior hygiene and repel insects.

[6] Purananuru generally dated 150 BCE[11] mentions women of Tamil Nadu smear cow dung on the floors at the 13th day after her husband's death to purify the house.

[12] Italian traveler Pietro Della Valle, who visited India in 1624, observed that the locals - including Christians - smeared floor with cow dung to purify it and repel insects.

[13] Tryambaka's Strī-dharma-paddhati (18th century), which narrates a modified version of the Mahabharata legend about how the goddess Lakshmi came to reside in cow dung, instructs women to make their homes pure and prosperous by coating them with cow-dung.

Cow dung is also an optional ingredient in the manufacture of adobe mud brick housing depending on the availability of materials at hand.

[19][20] On April 21, 2001 Robert Deevers of Elgin, Oklahoma, set the record for cow chip throwing with a distance of 185 feet 5 inches (56.52 m).

[23] 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.