About Cows

Size

• A newborn calf can weigh anywhere between 50 to 100 pounds. The heaviest bull ever recorded was a Chianina bull named Donetto, weighing in at 3,836 pounds, in 1955. A Hereford Steer named Old Ben was recorded as the heaviest steer in the world, weighing 4,720 pounds as an 8-year-old in 1910. Most steers don't reach the ripe old age of 8, as they are usually slaughtered before they pass 1,600 pounds.

Misconceptions

• The misconception that a bull will charge when a red flag is raised is common. Cattle are, in fact, red-green color-blind. What enrages the bull it is the sharp waving of the cape.

Identification

• There are more than 800 breeds of cattle and two classifications: Bos indicus (also known as zebu), which thrive in hot climates, and bos taurus, which are the cattle of Europe, Asia and Africa. Sometimes the breeds intermix (they can also mate with yak and bison) and create hybrid cattle. Popular and easily recognized cows are the Jersey and Holstein dairy cows and the black Angus cow raised for beef.

  A male cow is called a bull, and a female is a cow. A heifer is a young female cow, and a steer is a bull that has been castrated.

Significance

• Cows in India are treated as holy vessels, protected by the Hindu religion and cited in numorous stories in the Puranas. Because cows supply humans with milk, Indians see them as a holy mother figure. Hindus also believe that the milk a cow provides makes it a valuable animal to keep alive, rather than slaughtering it for meat. Quoting Gandhi: "The cow is the second mother to millions of mankind. Protection of the cow means protection of the whole dumb creation of God. The appeal of the lower order of creation is all the more forceful because it is speechless."

Function

• Cattle farms raise cattle for beef, dairy products, leather and veal. During a single day, a cattle farmer may take part in many activities tending to the cattle: milking, cleaning of the cows and their pens, dehorning and ear tagging, giving vaccinations and trimming hooves. Some farmers train their cows to be ready for agricultural shows and fairs. Cows may be kept as family pets or milk sources, and some farmers use cows to keep grasslands low. In general, however, of the 1.5 billion cattle on Earth, more than three-quarters are raised for slaughter.

Features

• Cows gestate for nine months before being born and live about 15 years. Cows have a ruminant digestive system, which allows them to eat food, regurgitate it and rechew it, swallowing it again for digestion. The cow stomach has four compartments-- rumen, reticulum, omasum and abomasum. Herds of cattle are born and raised on large expanses of grassland.

Effects

• Cows are responsible for 18 percent of greenhouse gases, which cause global warming (cows produce methane by belching). The increasing global demand for cattle used for human consumption causes an increase in the damaging gases, making cattle-raising one of the top three environmental problems in the world. To battle this issue, scientists are formulating a vaccine to reduce the methanogentic microbes in the cow's gut, which is where the methane gestates before it is emitted. The vaccine, along with dietary supplements, could help eradicate the methane issue in the future.