The Domestic Cow

Jan 18, 2009 Features / Columnists, Interesting Creatures in Guyana

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Cattle, colloquially referred to as cows, are domesticated ungulates, a member of the subfamily Bovinae of the family Bovidae. They are raised as livestock for meat (called beef and veal), dairy products (milk), leather and as draft animals (pulling carts, plows and the like). In some countries, such as India, they are honoured in religious ceremonies and revered. It is estimated that there are 1.3 billion cattle in the world today.

The word cattle can only be used in the plural and not in the singular: it is a plurale tantum. Thus one may refer to “three cattle” or “some cattle”, but not “one cattle”.

There is no universally used singular equivalent in modern English to “cattle”, other than the gender and age-specific terms such as cow, bull, steer and heifer.

The word cow, on the other hand, has been in general use as a singular for the collective “cattle” in spite of the objections of those who say that it is a female-specific term, so that that phrases such as “that cow is a bull” would be absurd from a lexicographic standpoint. However, it is easy to use when a singular is needed and the gender is not known, as in “There is a cow on the road.”

Further, any herd of fully mature cattle in or near a pasture is statistically likely to consist mostly of cows, so the term is probably accurate even in the restrictive sense.

Other than the few bulls needed for breeding, the vast majority of male cattle are castrated as calves and slaughtered for meat before the age of three years. Thus, in a pastured herd, any calves or herd bulls usually are clearly distinguishable from the cows due to distinctively different sizes and clear anatomical differences.

The Oxford English Dictionary lists the use of “cows” as a synonym for “cattle” as an American usage. Merriam-Webster, a U.S. dictionary, recognizes the non-gender-specific use of “cow” as an alternate definition, whereas Collins, a UK dictionary, does not.

Cattle in general have one stomach, with four compartments. They are the rumen, reticulum, omasum, and abomasum, the rumen being the largest compartment. They sometimes consume metal objects which are deposited in the reticulum, the smallest compartment, and this is where hardware disease occurs. The reticulum is known as the ‘Honeycomb’.

The omasum’s main function is to absorb water and nutrients from the digestible feed. The omasum is known as the ‘Many Plies’. The abomasum is like the human stomach; this is why it is known as the ‘true stomach’.

It is said that cattle are ruminants, meaning that they have a digestive system that allows use of otherwise indigestible foods by repeatedly regurgitating and rechewing them as ‘cud’.

The cud is then re-swallowed and further digested by specialised microorganisms in the rumen. These microbes are primarily responsible for decomposing cellulose and other carbohydrates into volatile fatty acids that cattle use as their primary metabolic fuel.

The microbes inside of the rumen are also able to synthesize amino acids from non-protein nitrogenous sources such as urea and ammonia. As these microbes reproduce in the rumen, older generations die and their carcasses continue on through the digestive tract.

These carcasses are then partially digested by the cattle, allowing it to gain a high quality protein source. These features allow cattle to thrive on grasses and other vegetation.

The gestation period for a cow is nine months. A newborn calf weighs 25 to 45 kilograms (55 to 99 lbs).
The world record for the heaviest bull was 1,740 kilograms (3,836 lbs) a Chianina named Donetto, when he was exhibited at the Arezzo show in 1955. The heaviest steer was eight-year-old ‘Old Ben’, a Shorthorn/Hereford cross weighing in at 2,140 kilograms (4,718 lbs) in 1910.

A common misconception about cattle (particularly bulls) is that they are enraged by the colour red (something provocative is often said to be “like a red flag to a bull”). This is incorrect, as cattle are red-green color-blind.

The myth arose from the use of red capes in the sport of bullfighting; in fact, two different capes are used. The capote is a large, flowing cape that is magenta and yellow.

The more famous muleta is the smaller, red cape, used exclusively for the final, fatal segment of the fight. It is not the colour of the cape that angers the bull, but rather the movement of the fabric that irritates the bull and incites it to charge.

Although cattle cannot distinguish red from green, they do have two kinds of colour receptors in their retinas (cone cells) and so are theoretically able to distinguish some colours, probably in a similar way to other red-green color-blind or dichromatic mammals such as dogs, cats, horses and up to ten percent of male humans.
(Source: Wikipedia – The Free Online Encylopedia)

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