cattle

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Cattle arrived in Florida before 1600 with early Spanish settlers. A shipment in 1611 initiated cattle raising in Virginia; the Pilgrims began with a few of the Devonshire breed in 1624. Black and white Dutch cattle were brought to New Amsterdam in 1625. John Mason imported large yellow cattle from Denmark into New Hampshire in 1633. Although losses of cattle during the ocean voyages were heavy, they increased rapidly in all the colonies and soon were exported to the West Indies, both live and as salted barreled beef.

Interest in improved livestock, based upon English efforts, came at the close of the American Revolution when Bakewell, or improved longhorn cattle, were imported, followed by shorthorns, sometimes called Durhams, and Devons. Henry Clay first imported Herefords in 1817. Substantial numbers of Aberdeen Angus did not reach the United States from Scotland until after the Civil War. By the 1880s, some of the shorthorns were being developed as dairy stock. By the 1860s other dairy breeds had been established—the Holstein-Friesian breed, based upon stock from Holland, and the Brown Swiss. Even earlier, Ayrshires, Jerseys, and Guernseys were raised as dairy cattle.

Cattle growers in the Northeast and across the Midwest relied on selective breeding, fencing, and haymaking, as well as built structures. Dairying began in New York State and spread across the northern regions of the country. Cheese production increased in the North during the Civil War. Butter making was a substantial source of income for many rural households. Cattle-raising techniques in the southern regions included open grazing, the use of salt and cow pens to manage herds, as well as dogs and whips to control animals. Southern practices included droving, branding, and roundups early in American history.

During the Civil War, longhorn cattle, descendants of Spanish stock, grew up unchecked on the Texas plains. After other attempts to market these cattle failed, Joseph G. McCoy made arrangements to ship them from the railhead at Abilene, Kansas, and in 1867 the long drives from Texas to the railheads began. Midwestern farms diversified by fattening trailed animals on corn before shipping to market, leading to the feedlot industry. In 1868 iced rail cars were adopted, allowing fresh beef, rather than live animals, to be shipped to market. Chicago became a center for the meatpacking industry.

Overgrazing, disastrous weather, and settlement by homesteaders brought the range cattle industry to an end after 1887. The invention of Barbed Wire by Joseph Glidden in the 1870s made fencing the treeless plains possible, ending free-ranging droving of cattle. Fencing allowed selective breeding and also minimized infection from tick fever by limiting the mobility of cattle.

While dairy breeds did not change, productivity per cow increased greatly. Dairy technology improved, and the areas of supply were extended. Homogenization, controls of butterfat percentage, and drying changed traditional milk production and consumption. The industry also became subject to high standards of sanitation.

By the 1980s, hormones and antibiotics were used to boost production of meat and milk while cutting costs to the producer. By 1998, 90 percent of all beef cattle were given hormone implants, boosting weight and cutting expenses by 7 percent. In the 1990s, mad cow disease, bovine spongiform encephalopathy, was identified in Britain. Related to a human disease, Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, it was believed to be caused by feeding infected rendered animal products to cattle. Worldwide attention focused on cattle feeding and health. In 2001, foot-and-mouth disease swept through herds in many countries. Neither disease appeared in U.S. cattle.

Artificial insemination technology grew significantly. Eggs from prize cows were harvested and then fertilized in the laboratory, and the frozen embryos were implanted in other cows or exported to cattle-growing markets around the world. In 1998 the first cloned calf was created in Japan; by 2001, researchers at the University of Georgia had reproduced eight cloned calves. Cattle by-products from meat slaughter were significant in the pharmaceutical and health care industry. In 2001, artificial human blood was experimentally synthesized from cattle blood.

Grazing on public lands in the West was criticized in the 1980s, focusing attention on federal government–administered leases. At the same time, holistic grazing techniques grew in popularity, resulting from Allan Savory's work to renew desertified pastures through planned intensive grazing.

In 1998, slaughter cattle weighed 20 pounds more (with an average total of 1,194 pounds) than the year before; smaller numbers of cattle were going to market, but the meat yield was higher. The number of beef cattle slaughtered dropped 12 percent between 1998 and 2000. Per capita beef consumption dropped between 1980 and 2000 by 7 pounds, to 69.5 pounds per person, but began rising in 1998–1999. Total retail beef consumption rose from $40.7 billion in 1980 to $58.6 billion in 2000. In 1999, average milk production per dairy cow was 17,771 pounds per year; the total milk production was 163 billion pounds.

Bibliography

Carlson, Laurie Winn. Cattle: An Informal Social History. Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 2001.

Jordan, Terry G. North American Cattle-Ranching Frontiers: Origins, Diffusion, and Differentiation. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1993.

—Laurie Winn Carlson

The history of the domestication of cattle, their use as key elements of human survival systems, their biology, how and when they are currently raised, and how they are processed and marketed for consumption are all issues that help us understand beef as a part of different food systems. "Cattle" refers to live animals, including the young (calves), females before giving birth (heifers), females that have given birth (cows), fertile males (bulls), and castrated males (steers). Beef is the meat of all these animals while specialized terms for beef, such as veal (the meat of young, milk-fed calves), relate to food preferences in different cultures.

Beef is produced and consumed worldwide, and, like that of many commodities, its production is increasing. It is consumed not only as hamburgers, roasts, and steaks, but meat by-products including hides, horns, hoofs, intestines, and brains are used in a variety of products including: shampoo, marshmallows, ice cream, gelatin, cement, chalk, chewing gum, makeup, matches, margarine, and strings for musical instruments and tennis racquets. Beef is raised in three phases before it is processed: calves are raised on pasture and range land, as feeder cattle they feed on pasture, crop residue, and range land, and finally they go to feedlots, where they are fattened for slaughter. The slaughterhouse (packer) is also the disassembly plant, where the carcass is divided into "cuts." Since the advent of boxed beef, most of the disassembly occurs at the plant itself, whereas previously sides of beef went to wholesale or retail butchers who divided it further. After slaughter, the commodity chain diverges. A portion goes directly to wholesalers, who distribute to institutional users or grocery stores, although grocery chains are increasingly linked directly to the packer. Another portion goes into further processing for sausages, bologna, hot dogs, and other processed meats, or is used for canned and frozen "heat and eat" meals. The carcass is rendered and the by-products are used in a wide variety of products. For example, hooves can be made into gelatin, hides into leather, bones and cartilage into bonemeal for plant nutrition, and intestines and some organs and other parts not usually used in meat markets go to pet food. Up until the mid-1980s, the bones and nerves were ground into bone meal and fed as a supplement to cattle and other animals, until this practice was banned. Beef is increasingly consumed in restaurants, from steakhouses to fast food establishments. There is enormous variety in the use of all parts of the animal for delicacies prepared for home use and street food sale, from the stomach (tripe soup in many cultures) to the tail. Lower-quality beef and inferior parts are used in Japan in a simple dish called nimono as a kind of seasoning.

Biology

Description. Cattle are large ruminants of the family Bovidae and the genus Bos. Ruminants are mammals whose stomach has four parts—rumen, reticulum, omasum, and abomasums. The rumen provides a pouch where fibrous plant materials are broken down by bacteria so their nutrients can be digested. Because they are ruminants, cattle can digest plant materials that serve no other human use. As herbivores, they are selective eaters, but consume a variety of types of plants.

From the time of their original domestication, cattle were selectively chosen to meet multiple human needs, including providing traction and transportation, meat, and milk. Cattle have provided fuel for cooking and heating, plaster for walls, manure for gardens and fields, strings for musical instruments, and clothing—from hats to shoes. Originally valued for docility, cattle are increasingly bred to meet specific needs of those who raise them, process them, and eat them.

The systematic development of cattle breeding began as a part of the industrial revolution and the renaissance of British agriculture. The enclosure movement in England in the sixteenth century not only forced rural peasant farmers from the land to work in factories, but left privatized lands in the hands of a few landed gentry who could breed the stock they desired. Breed formation started with a useful local type that was then inbred until it showed uniformity. Breeds were then shown at livestock fairs that were part of the country lifestyle of the landed classes. Heredity was carefully recorded in herd books, and sires and mating were carefully controlled. Pure breed associations were formed. It was in this context, between 1750 and 1850, that the Angus, Hereford, and Shorthorn breeds were developed.

In other regions of Europe, inbreeding had produced uniform and locally adapted breeds, although specialization in rearing and feeding cattle for beef occurred long after it had in Great Britain. In the United States, interest in breeding began around the turn of the twentieth century (numbers had been important up to that point). In particular, Herefords were imported because they matured early, which allowed for the slaughter of yearlings rather than the four-year-olds prevalent at that time. In parts of France, five-to six-year-olds are still preferred for their flavor, particularly if they are fattened on grass.

In the course of seeking early maturing animals, many lines and traits have been lost. However, the introduction of new breeds has transformed the appearance—and probably the taste, nutritional qualities, and tenderness—of cattle in beef-exporting nations, particularly the United States and Canada.

Original extent. Cattle may have originated at about the same time in Europe, Asia, and Africa. Surviving relatives are present on all three continents. Seldom kept solely for beef production, cattle were beasts of burden as well as critical providers of milk and butter. They were only slaughtered when their ability to produce these ongoing products was reduced, at which point their hides, hooves, horns, bones, intestines, and other non-edible parts were valued as much as their meat, which generally supplemented that provided by wild game. Modern domestic cattle are believed to descend from Bos taurus, which includes European breeds such as Shorthorn and Jersey and Bos indicus, which includes Zebu breeds from South Asia and Africa. Cattle in much of the world were primarily used for traction for crop agriculture and for transportation.

Nutritional and nonnutritional constituents. Bovine flesh is called beef when the animal is mature and referred to as veal when it is a calf. Beef provides high levels of energy and protein. Proteins found in beef have a higher digestibility than most plant proteins and a wider range of amino acids. The bioavailability of important minerals (including calcium, phosphorous, iron, zinc, magnesium, and manganese) as well as vitamins (including thiamine, riboflavin, niacin, pyridoxine [B6], and B12) is high in beef. In many parts of the world, beef is viewed as the most fortified and most nutritious butcher's meat. High in iron, it can also be high in cholesterol and highly saturated fatty acids, as for many years cattle were bred for weight gain. Corn-fed cattle have higher levels of omega-6, which is a coagulant, in their meat. Grass-fed animals, in contrast, have much higher concentrations of omega-3 fatty acids, which have anti-inflammatory properties and are anticoagulants. Too much omega-6 leads to clogged arteries, while omega-3 fatty acids do not. Fat content in general depends on the cut of beef, genetics, and the feeding of the animal prior to slaughter.

Table 1

History

Domestication. Among early transhumant populations, which moved seasonally to find food, herds of hoofed mammals that were the ancestors of our current breeds moved with them. Initially roaming to find grass as seasons changed, cattle were later driven to provide a constant source of fuel and milk. As human life became more sedentary, cattle were an important part of the move to agriculture, providing traction for plowing in many sites in the Old World. In the New World, cattle were introduced with European colonization.

Historical diffusion and trade. Cattle husbandry was a part of Roman culture and spread with the Roman Empire. Norman conquerors brought beef-eating to the British Isles, although cattle were already serving many other functions for farm households. Cattle culture was an early part of complex social organization, often representing wealth. For example, the Celts based their wealth on cattle prior to 1066. In fact, in a number of languages the root word for cattle and for money is the same. In parts of Africa, wealth is judged by number of cattle, and dowries are paid in cattle.

South American grasslands did not have large ruminants before the Spanish and Portuguese introduced cattle to the grasslands from Argentina and Chile to Mexico and the southern part of what is now the United States. Raised on large estancias, faezendas, or haciendas, they were valued primarily for their hides, hooves, and horns, which could be exported to Europe. The owners of the large estates employed vaqueros, gauchos, or cowboys to undertake the day-to-day care of the cattle and to drive them to the appropriate place for shipping or slaughter. Thus, cattle imported to the New World from Spain were primarily beef cattle, the famous long-horns, tough for eating but resilient, and able to utilize the meager feed available in the dry plains of the central North American continent.

Australia and New Zealand grasslands were the last to have cattle introduced. The first cattle, black Africander, arrived in 1788 and Zebu cattle arrived from India in 1795, followed by English breeds. While settlers introduced cattle, it was large companies that exploited the great potential of the early cattle industry in Australia. The early cattle were driven to follow forage and water availability and then to slaughter. Wire fencing in the 1860s and bore wells and the railway book in the 1880s allowed for the establishment of permanent cattle stations. With the first shipment of frozen beef to England in 1879, the cattle industry became export-oriented.

Europeans who came to the North American continent and the Antipodes (New Zealand and Australia) brought their livestock with them. There was much genetic diversity in the livestock that arrived with migrants from different rural areas of Europe. The cattle from northern Europe tended to be triple-purpose cattle—for traction, milk, and meat—and they tended to be either family cows or small herds of beef raised on family farms outside population settlements.

The coming of the railroad transformed cattle production in North and South America, allowing both livestock and sides of beef to travel further faster. Beef was produced primarily in the plain states. Cattle drives to railheads gave rise to the myths of the cowboy. Railroads transported the cattle to population centers, where they could be butchered nearer to the consumer. The wide dispersal of cattle and their seasonal migrations was gradually cut back as the plains were fenced and other forms of agriculture competed with cattle for the land.

Yet even in the east, the ability of ruminants to convert plant materials of all kinds into food meant that land unfit for agriculture, because it was too steep or too poorly drained, was used for grazing cattle. As farmers moved into the plains in the 1830s and 1840s, before the lands of the majority of states like Iowa and Illinois were drained for agriculture, cattle were an important part of the farming mix using land that was unfit for cultivation or homesites. As soil was drained, however, less land was used for pasture, and more was used for crops.

Cattle were still the cheapest way of shipping the course grains, particularly corn. Meadows changed to pasture, and then were drained and became cropland. The farmers who moved to these reclaimed areas were almost all commercial rather than subsistence. As cities grew, the demand for meat increased.

James Whitaker argues that "through a combination of availability of railroads, type of land tenure, cost of drainage, and price of beef in the 1880s and early 1890s," many of the states shifted to producing cash grains rather than fat cattle (1975, p. 14). Mechanization in particular helped bring about this change, as did the ability to open up the prairie with chisel plows.

During the nineteenth century, cow/calf operations and fattening cattle were further differentiated. By 1819, cattle feeders from Indiana, Ohio, and Kentucky were traveling as far west as Missouri and Oklahoma in search of young animals to take home for fattening on corn in preparation for the overland drive to the eastern markets. But some cattle producers believed they could raise cattle and corn more cheaply in Iowa and Illinois than in Ohio or Kentucky. Those cattle were driven to eastern markets or shipped south to New Orleans on the Mississippi.

Those who first drove feeder cattle east to fatten brought the cattle-feeding pattern to Iowa and Illinois when they returned to settle after seeing the advantages of cheap prairie grass and corn. Until the Civil War, these cattle went primarily to the eastern markets.

Farmers had to go greater distances to find the feeder cattle they needed to fatten for market. Cow/calf operations, which thrived on smaller farm units, encouraged settlement. Large-scale operators gathered their herds from farmers who felt that feeding cattle was not profitable with less than two dozen head (Whitaker, 1975, p.22). Thus, small operators produced the calves, while larger operations fed them out and fattened them.

After the Civil War, feeders again returned to Texas and the plains. The increasing use of the western range as a source of feeder cattle brought significant changes to the cattle feeding industry in the Corn Belt. There were two available feeding strategies: 1) purchase cheap western cattle, feed them for a year, and then sell for a small profit margin per animal hoping to make money on the large volume of sales; or 2) pursue a low-volume business of better quality of cattle bringing a larger profit per head. Improved cattle provided a way to get the most profit out of good grass and good corn while not robbing the land of its fertility as the cattle recycled the nutrients they consumed.

Those who followed the second strategy were more interested in improved beef breeds. Farmers were slow to improve their herds, but those who did generally profited from it. Because cow/calf operations were a small part of many farms, breed and pasture improvements were not quickly or widely adopted.

By the end of the 1850s, cattle were being fattened in Iowa and Illinois rather than being calved and weaned and driven east to be fattened. In the years after 1865, technological advances contributed to the continued growth and expansion in the beef industry. Illinois and Iowa became leading producers of corn-fattened cattle and Chicago became one of the world's leading cattle markets. The organization and expansion of a central market in Chicago was a result of the new railroad network, the concentration of meat packers in Chicago, the development of refrigeration facilities, the reorganization of retail meat marketing, and growth of the export trade in live and dressed beef. Demand for dressed beef increased, and the Corn Belt states met that demand with the combined production of cattle and corn.

The Civil War and the railroads brought centralization of market facilities, as increased receipts of livestock created chaos in handling transactions between several markets in the city. Formation of the Union Stockyards in 1865 was critical to bringing order out of chaos and in concentrating power. Demands of the new end market, created by the expansion of the railroads, gave rise to the dressed beef industry and the major packers who controlled it.

Although the technology existed before the Civil War, it was only in the late 1860s that refrigeration was effectively used to prevent the early spoilage of fresh meat, lengthening the time and distance from point of slaughter that fresh beef could be consumed. At first, consumers distrusted the quality of meat shipped hundreds of miles after being slaughtered; but, because dressed beef was sufficiently cheaper than local butcher stock, people were willing to try it.

The Swift Company was critical in moving this conversion forward. Swift and other companies fought with the railroad about whether dressed beef could be shipped at the same rate as live cattle. The invention of the hermetically sealed tin meant that corn-fattened cattle from Illinois and Iowa could be packed and shipped to domestic and foreign markets.

Soon after the Civil War, in the early 1870s, Chicago packers replaced packing pickled beef in barrels with canning. A court ruling that invalidated patented claims on the canning process triggered the expansion of canned meat. Western beef tended to be canned, as the quality was inferior to the corn-fed beef of the Midwest.

The great expansion of the market through technological and marketing changes in the dress beef trade created large vertically organized Chicago-based corporations. These corporations controlled, for the most part, both the wholesale and retail domestic markets for beef products. Known as the "big five," Armour & Company, Patrick Cudahy, Nelson Morris, Swift & Company, and Wilson & Company frequently acted together in buying cattle in the Union Stockyards and dividing retail trade among themselves. They also set prices and attempted to eliminate some of the less profitable aspects of competition.

As these companies were expanding rapidly due to the sharp increase in demand, they were pressed for cash and, thus, worked hard to lower both the price of labor in the packing plants and the cattle they purchased. To compound the problem of vertical integration and monopoly, a number of the packers went into the cattle feeding business.

By 1900 the concentration, if not the ownership of packing plants, had become decentralized. The major leading packing centers, with the same packers owning most of the capacity, were located in Chicago, Kansas City, Omaha, East St. Louis, and St. Joseph. There were lesser centers in Des Moines, Sioux City, St. Paul, and Fort Worth. The packers had so revolutionized the meat trade that butchers in some circles in the 1920s claimed that "not a retail butcher has made a fair profit and a living in the last ten years" because of packer branch houses (Whitaker, 1975, p. 54).

A major transformation of beef packing, which had previously been located near consumers and the transportation centers of larger cities, occurred with the founding of Iowa Beef Packing in Denison, Iowa, later renamed IBP. To lower buying costs, shorten transportation distances, and eliminate intermediaries, IBP put its plants near large feed lots, which tended to be located near sources of feed grains and away from large population centers.

Work on the plant floor was organized to require less skilled and less experienced workers. Thus wages could be considerably lower than in Chicago, Kansas City, or even Des Moines. Focusing on primal cuts, they became know as "kill and chill" plants, shipping to meat processors all the specialty items that were once part of traditional packing plants. Hot dogs, sausages, processed meats, and even hamburger were shipped to other sites for further elaboration and additional value. That also kept work standard and wages low compared to the plants that were closing in the Midwest.

In 1967, IBP perfected an innovation that dramatically changed the industry—boxed beef. Instead of shipping beef to customers in whole carcass form, as the industry had done for years, IBP mastered a process in which the packer breaks down the carcass into smaller portions. These cuts are then vacuum-packed and shipped out in boxes. While boxed beef was initially sold to the hotel, restaurant, and institutional trade, they soon shipped it to retail groceries as well.

Through this "butcher friendly" concept, it became possible to eliminate more than 250 pounds of fat, bones, and trimmings, which were of very little value to the retail and food service customer. Boxed meat improved quality, provided easier merchandising at the retail level, improved shelf life, and saved energy, transportation, and labor costs. This major innovation in beef processing came with the 1967 opening of a boxed beef operation at IBP's new Dakota City plant complex. It was the first large-scale beef processing plant in the nation. Dakota City also became the new location of the company's headquarters.

The advent of boxed beef changed the structure and geography of the entire meat industry. Now, instead of shipping carcasses, the packing plants cut the beef down into wholesale pieces and vacuum packed them into boxes. This greatly reduced the amount of work for wholesale butchers and also decreased the amount of space needed for shipping. In the 1970s, fuel and transportation costs were at an all-time high in constant dollar terms. Boxed beef allowed the packer to add more value to the product at the plant, to reduce transaction costs in shipping, and it reduced labor costs for urban retail grocery chains. It also reduced the power of grocery store cutters, as the retooling of the plants in rural areas reduced the power of the workers on the floor. Stores were able to bypass the skilled labor union members for meatpacking and distribution by hiring low-skilled workers to do repetitive tasks that were relatively quickly learned; turnover was high due to poor working conditions but labor was plentiful as long as unemployment was relatively high or there was a plentiful supply of immigrant workers. That strategy that linked new technology to new workers lowered costs and pushed the balance of power in the industry in favor of the packers and the grocery chain and against cattle growers and packing plant workers.

Procurement

Husbandry. Calves are generally conceived either through artificial insemination (increasingly the case in developed countries) or by bulls, in the case of larger herds, or borrowed for the occasion for smaller herds. Calves are raised on grassland or rangeland with their mothers until weaned, then usually sold to a stocker feeder who will bring them up to around nine hundred to a thousand pounds on rangeland, pasture, or crop residues. Prior to slaughter, cattle often enter a feedlot, where they are fed high-protein feed and fattened.

Artificial insemination (AI) is little used in cow/calf operations in the western half of the United States. Most herds depend on bulls. One bull for each twenty to thirty cows is usually recommended. The biggest deterrent to using AI is the extra labor needed to detect cows in heat on open range and then to confine them for individual insemination. The problem was partially overcome with the approval for use of hormonal materials that can be injected to synchronize estrus. More than half of an entire cowherd may be bred successfully during a single day by a skilled inseminator using AI and estrus stimulation.

Birthing difficulties are one of the most costly problems in calf production. As a result, American ranchers typically breed their heifers to Longhorns in order to get low birthweight calves—but this results in substandard beef.

Cow/calf producers normally rely on grazing. Nutrients obtained through grazing are usually less costly than those provided through harvested forages, grains, or other processed feeds. In addition, the dispersion of cattle grazing helps to minimize other problems, such as disease epidemics. Lowering the risk of disease decreases production costs and also reduces the need for labor. The western United States dry native range, on which agricultural operations are minimal, provides an overwhelming share of the grazing. The area necessary to support a cow depends on the amount of rainfall—the less the rainfall, the more acres required to support each head of livestock.

The stocker feeder generally uses pasture and rangeland as well as crop residues for feeding. The cattle still harvest most of their own food. Increasingly, stocker feeders are using rotational grazing (particularly in Australia and New Zealand), which helps them raise more cattle better on less land and keep the land in better condition.

There is a disjunction between the cow/calf operator or stock feeders and the feedlots/packers, which results in a very fragmented commodity chain with a great deal of distrust between the stages. The first two stages manage the resource. The last two stages manage the market.

While much of the world prefers grass-finished beef, the United States and Canada have focused on corn-fattened beef. Grain farmers who raised cattle on their uncultivable land fed their cattle using their own grains. While farm feedlots were dominant through the 1960s, changes in the tax laws in the 1970s made investment in "agricultural" enterprises extremely profitable. Capital moved into stand-alone feedlots, first from rural professionals, then from their urban kin and friends, and finally from corporations. The relocation of the feedlots, in turn, impacted corn production. As the large feed lots moved to more arid areas, where waste management was easier and population less dense, demand for corn increased. Beef fattening became more concentrated and shifted west.

Biological and mechanical technology worked together to standardize beef production in order to maximize packer convenience. Packing plants demanded uniform-sized carcasses to maintain the speed of the disassembly line. Adjusting the height of the chain that carried the carcass around the plant was time consuming. At the same time, hormones were being introduced to increase rate of growth and improve feed conversion. While there is some evidence that the injection or implanting of hormones or steroids may toughen the meat and affect flavor, it does add extra weight. Animals were slaughtered at the same age and much higher weights, in essence increasing the supply of beef.

Slaughter and processing. Traditionally, small farmers around the world raised cattle from calf to slaughter (although in many parts of Africa, as in North and South America, beef cattle were not herded by their owners). Once the productivity of the animal had declined or feed supply became scarce, it was either slaughtered for home consumption or taken to an abattoir or butcher to be slaughtered, disassembled, and sold.

The division of labor between cow/calf operations, stock feeder operations, and fattening operations was established in the early part of the twentieth century. By that time, the industry had taken on its current form—very centralized packing operations with close ties to wholesale and retail distributors linked to feedlots, feeders, and cow/calf operations. Industrial concentration increases as the animals grow older. There are a great many cow-calf operations, slightly fewer stock feeder operations for the weaned calves, many fewer feedlots, many fewer packers, and a decreasing number of wholesalers, now mostly linked to retail chains.

Before World War II, retail stores bought quarters and sides of beef and cut them into "primal cuts" and retail cuts. After the war, consolidation of the retail grocery industry proceeded very rapidly, as local butcher shops and single-store operations were closed. One of the major ways supermarkets had of increasing profits was decreasing labor costs. Self-service, which required less labor to gather customer orders, now included meats, replacing the butcher who had previously cut and wrapped meat to each customer's specific request. Supermarket corporations particularly welcomed the central processing of meat, which allowed them to reduce the number of meat cutters who were their highest paid workers. Box beef was an innovation that met the needs of supermarket chains, as net profits declined between 1967 and 1974 to 0.8 percent, 60 percent of their previous level, and real wages grew over 7.5 percent per year, or 50 percent faster than before (Walsh, 1991, p. 452). Thus the retail part of the beef industry was ready for packaging innovation. That innovation, boxed beef, impacted the geography as well as the structure of the meat-packing industry by moving beef processing from urban centers, where, as a mature industry, it was highly unionized, to rural areas near feedlots and sources of grain, particularly corn. As these areas were sparsely populated, it was necessary to recruit a labor force, and new migrants from Asia (particularly Southeast Asia), Latin America (particularly Mexico), and Africa (particularly Somalia) moved to the rural packing plants to take the jobs.

Storage. Consumers prefer fresh beef to frozen beef. Yet beef has a relatively high spoilage rate. Spoilage is averted by keeping bacterial counts low, which is accomplished through plant cleanliness, careful slaughter procedures that prevent E. coli from the intestines from coming into contact with the carcass as it goes to be disassembled, and keeping temperatures low so that the bacteria multiply at low rates. Reducing the oxidation of the meat after aging, that is, minimizing contact with oxygen in the atmosphere, is also a factor. Refrigerated cars and trailer trucks help reduce spoilage, as does consuming the meat shortly after it is produced and slaughtered. Irradiation of beef is now highly promoted by the industry to increase shelf life, but meat processors have been reluctant to introduce this procedure because of consumer concerns related to its impact on beef quality and safety.

Aging the carcass adds tenderness and flavor, but adds cost in terms of storage space and time in inventory. After slaughter and initial disassembly, beef is moved within the packing plant to a refrigerated room kept at a temperature between 34°F and 38°F. This cools the meat and firms it prior to shipment. The meat is generally kept refrigerated for 24 to 36 hours. Fresh beef can be held for several weeks at this temperature, and prime beef is sometimes held for five or six weeks long to "age" it. Fresh chilled beef must be shipped in specially refrigerated cars and ships in order to arrive in good condition.

Distribution. There is increasing vertical integration between the international companies who own the packing plants and retail grocery chains. While beef has traditionally gone through a series of brokers and wholesalers, the links in the commodity chain have been reduced for a number of major grocery chains such as Walmart. This vertical integration has been coupled with an increase in branded beef for supermarket sales, which was unheard of in the early 1990s. Restaurant chains are also forming tighter linkages with packers and even feedlots, stock feeders and cow/calf operators, as consumer demand for particular qualities in appearance and taste, as well as how an animal is raised, become more important.

Changes in the means of procurement over time. Carcasses are graded for quality, which is assumed to be related to taste and tenderness. The price paid by the packing house depends in part on the grade the carcass receives and that day's demand for the different grades. Different nations have their own grading standards. Grading standards change over time, but relatively slowly. In part, that is because each stage of the system defines quality differently.

Despite increasing concentration in feeding and packing, the beef cattle industry is disjointed and dispersed because of its dispersed resource base. There are over one million cow-calf herds in the United States, down 2 percent between 1996 and 1997. The average cowherd consists of fifty cows. Thirty percent of calves come from 700,000 herds, averaging fifteen heads of cattle. Sixty percent of cattle end up in 215 different feedlots. This dispersed base funnels through the auction markets, which still play a dominant role in the cattle industry, into gross economies of scale in the form of feedlots and packing. The cattle industry is a scavenger industry, in that its nutrient fuel base varies widely and ranges extensively, and includes grass, crop residue, and wheat that otherwise might not be used for commercial purposes. And there are difficulties in linking the different parts of the value chain when one part is based on managing the available resources (cow-calf operations and feeder cattle operations) and another is based on responding to market timing (feed lots and packers).

American beef exports have increased from less than one percent of production in the 1970s to around 9 percent by 2000. In general, imported beef competes with U.S. dairy cull cows in the production of hamburger. Imports have averaged 9 to 11 percent of beef consumed in the United States since the mid-1980s, with the level in any year depending on the phase in the American cattle cycle. For example, at the peak of the cattle cycle in 1996, less than 8 percent of the beef consumed in the United States was imported, compared to over 11 percent in 2000.

Preparation and Consumption

Preparation. Beef can be preserved and prepared in many ways. Early preservation involved salt: meat was salted and dried or placed in a brine of salt water. Beef is still salted and dried in many parts of the world, providing portability and flexibility in storage and consumption. The dried beef can be eaten dry or reconstituted in sauces. Prior to the advent of canning, corned beef was shipped across continents to feed armies stationed abroad. But with the advent of the canning process, corned beef could be more easily shipped and stored for a wide range of purposes. Relatively large pieces of fresh beef are preferred in Europe, Australia and New Zealand, and the Americas. In Asia and Africa, beef is eaten more often, but in smaller quantities than in the West. In some cultures, beef is a condiment, served in highly flavored sauces with grains and legumes.

Different cultures have different ways of cutting beef and defining beef quality. In France, where hormone injections and implants are illegal, male cattle are not castrated until they gain full size. The preferred animal is older, slow growing, grass-fed, and the meat is darker in color. In North America, animals are killed younger, grow faster through the use of hormones and nutrientrich feeding, and the meat is lighter in color in the meat case. These cuts of beef are often grilled (requiring marbling) or fried. Groups of European origin also bake and boil various cuts of beef. Braising, simmering, roasting, broiling, soups, and stews are other ways that specific cuts of beef are made palatable. Beef is also eaten raw, chopped fine for beefsteak tartare and beefsteak à l'americaine. Beef is often cooked with alcoholic beverages, such as beer and wine, to tenderize it and add flavor.

The introduction of European genetics led to four modern Japanese breeds that are known as wagyu. They are valued because of their wonderful taste and extreme tenderness. The meat is thinly sliced and placed in boiling water along with a variety of vegetables, resembling a traditional method for cooking fish and vegetables for shabu-shabu and sukiyaki. High marbling is required to maintain its tenderness during the boiling process. Beef in served in many cultures with a wide variety of root crops and vegetables

Types of beef. Almost all parts of the animal are used as food. Western cookbooks include recipes for brains, blood, heart, kidneys, liver, lights (lungs), sweetbreads (thymus gland), tongue, and tripe (the lining of the third stomach), which are particularly used in regional cooking. In addition, beef heads were made into head cheese and the feet used in soups in many cultures. Use of these less desirable cuts came from peasant households, who invented delicious but labor-intensive ways to utilize the parts rejected by the upper classes.

Consumption

Traditions. Because of the multiple functions of cattle and their breeding potential to increase wealth, many societies in Asia and the Pacific developed strong taboos against killing cows or healthy bulls. Only worn-out work animals, barren cows, and unwanted calves were sold for slaughter or consumed within the household. Thus many of the ways of cooking beef involved long, slow cooking.

Many cultures around the world consume beef. Its consumption is permitted by all major religions of the world except Hinduism, although Buddhism discourages the eating of the meat of four-legged animals, including beef. For many years, in India, which had a very high cattle population (and even higher if one counts water buffalo), it was illegal to kill cattle, and slaughter of buffalo was highly restricted. Japan only revoked the ban against eating meat in 1882, soon after the Meiji Restoration. Shinto also had strong norms against showing of blood. Thus butchers cut the beef very thinly. Christianity views eating meat, particularly beef, as highly desirable and a sign of self-indulgence. Thus the giving up of meat during holy seasons, such as Lent, and on Fridays becomes a symbol of sacrifice, replicating that of Christ for the world.

Generally, beef is a meat for the wealthy. Nations that are large producers of beef also tend to eat very large pieces of beef relatively often. As nations' fortunes rise and fall, so does their per capita beef consumption. For example, the economic slowdown of the 1980s decreased Peruvian beef consumption, and the economic problems at the end of the twentieth and the beginning of the twenty-first century have reduced the traditionally high consumption of beef in Argentina.

Nourishment

While beef provides important nutrients, particularly iron and key amino acids, it is also a source of fat and cholesterol, although the concentration varies, depending on the cut of beef and how the animal was raised.

Symbolism

Ritualism and traditions. Cattle worship was widespread in the cattle cults of the Mediterranean basin. The crescent of the cow horns was seen as imbued with the life-giving power of the crescent moon. Cows, in particular, figure as symbols of fertility in parts of Asia and Africa.

Cattle are viewed as sacred in the Hindu tradition. Beef is not consumed, nor are cattle unduly constrained. But the by-products of cattle form an important part of peasant survival strategies in many rural areas. Their manure provides building materials, fuel, and fertilizer, and the animals themselves provide traction to raise the grains and pulses that are the staples of the South Asian diet. The prohibition against killing cattle ensures that even in times of hunger, the means to produce the following year will be in place.

Cattle have a paramount and pervasive symbolic value in many parts of East Africa, where they represent social status as well as wealth. As a result, the supply of cattle exceeds the demand for their meat, milk, hides, traction, or other uses to which they are put. In particular, the use of cattle for meat and hides or their sale for cash reduces the status of the head of household. More recently, the size of cattle corrals has proven to be an excellent proxy for the household wealth and status in communities in much of Africa. Cattle have critical symbolic importance in ritual, dance, marriage, and other aspects of social relations. For example, in many cultures the marriage contract calls for the payment of bride price to compensate for the loss of the services of the young woman to her parents. This is often negotiated in terms of number of cattle, delivered in installments: at marriage, the birth of the first child, and at the birth of the second child, at which time the marriage process is seen to be complete.

Global and Contemporary Issues

Commercialization. Over 48 million metric tons of beef were consumed globally in 2000, an increase of slightly over a million-and-a-half tons since 1995. Beef production worldwide exceeded consumption in 2000 by over a million metric tons, a pattern of overproduction that has marked the end of the twentieth and the beginning of the twenty-first century.

Generally, beef consumption increases with a rise in middle class incomes. The Argentina consumes the most beef per capita, followed by the United States, Australia, and Canada. The United States consumes the largest total amount of beef annually (around 12 million metric tons a year), followed by the European Union, the People's Republic of China, and Brazil. Canada, Mexico, Colombia, Argentina, and the Russian Federation are also major beef consumers.

Between 1995 and 2000, beef consumption increased 49 percent in India and 32 percent in the People's Republic of China. In contrast, during the same period it declined 28 percent in the Russian Federation and 19 percent in Poland. It did not decline further in the Russian Federation because of beef that came in the form of food aid. Unlike Europe, the United States does not have a direct subsidy program for beef, although it often steps in as a buyer to help keep market prices up. That beef is exported as food aid, and used domestically for school lunches and at military bases.

The United States trades an increasing amount of dressed beef internationally. The U.S. had a cattle inventory of 99.5 million head in January of 1998 (USDA/NASS, 1998), compared to a world cattle inventory of 1,323.3 billion head (FAO, 1998). While the numbers of American cattle rise and fall in approximately 18-year cycles, with numbers increasing with each cycle, world cattle numbers have shown a general increase since 1961. The current cycle peaked in 1996. With the large herd destruction in Europe in 2001 due to animal diseases, the herd shrink will increase.

Australia exports the most beef, followed closely by the United States, which is the second largest international beef exporter (primarily high quality beef) and the largest beef importer (primarily low quality beef to be made into hamburger). The United States consistently imports more beef than it exports. Japan is the second largest importer of beef. Between 1995 and 2000, beef exports increased the most in Canada and Brazil, followed by India and Uruguay. China and Australia decreased beef exports during this period, perhaps related to the increased consumption in both those countries. Mexico's beef imports increased over five times during the six-year period, as its economy gained a solid footing. However, imports dropped in many countries during that time period. In South Africa, decreasing imports was coupled by increased production. But in both Poland and the Russian Federation, both imports and production dropped substantially.

Consumption patterns. Beef is increasingly consumed in institutions and restaurants rather than at home, following the trend of most foods. Many cuts of beef require long cooking times, whereas restaurants tend to offer quick cooking cuts such as hamburger and steaks. Condiments and sauces give the meat flavors once provided by long cooking with herbs and spices. A variety of tenderizers are used to substitute for lack of aging, unreliable genetic origins, and short cooking times.

Beef is often eaten in the form of hamburgers, as the whole place and pace of eating changes in America and other places of the world. Where the ritual of family dining continues, beef often has an honored place, but the shift of women's work from the home to the factory and office has reduced that practice. Beef for home consumption is increasingly ground beef, with a growing market in packaged foods that can augment the ground beef and give it a homemade gourmet patina.

Beef that has been prepared to be carried out or home delivered, particularly as pepperoni or hamburger pizza, is increasingly popular, not only among the young but among working couples who would like to eat at home but have no time to cook. Increasingly, work place cafeterias are providing after work take-home meals for company or agency employees.

Institutions serve beef often, including in school lunchrooms (increasingly through franchisers, including fast food purveyors), hospitals, nursing homes, and prisons. There are fewer dietary restrictions on beef than pork among ethnic groups, increasing its utility in many institutional settings.

While beef has long been part of ready-to-eat soups and entrées, there are increasing attempts to make beef easier to cook and tastier—perhaps in response to the use of less tasty, less tender, quick-maturing breeds and hormone use to speed growth in the United States, where, unlike in Europe and Japan, early maturity is preferred over taste and tenderness. (However, the USDA firmly states that hormone-raised beef is extremely tasty and tender.) Beef is thus available at retail in stir-fry or fajita slices that have been marinated in a wide array of herbs, spices, and tenderizers. This cuts cooking time and gives a wider menu variety to the working chef and eater.

Types of consumption. Cattle and calf meat is consumed directly as meals and snacks, and its by-products are used in a wide number of foods, from gelatin to ice cream. In the United States, direct per capita beef consumption declined from 81.7 pounds to 63.8 pounds in 1997. More recent data suggests that U.S. beef consumption is increasing from the low in the years 1992–1996 of 63.5 pounds, in part in response to economic expansion.

Issues surrounding consumption. Cattle have proven to be a source of conflict at all stages of their production and consumption. On rangelands and pasture, there is great concern about: 1) overgrazing and its negative impact on biodiversity, soil quality, and hydrology; and 2) contamination of streams when cattle are allowed to freely wander in them. While research and practical experience have shown that cattle can enhance grassland and rangeland, that is often not the case, and cattlemen and women are generally extremely suspicious of environmental constraints, since they are seen as potentially infringing on the rights of the cattle operators to use their land and the land they rent (whether from the government or from their neighbors) as they see fit.

Cattle raising has been the cause of a great deal of deforestation in tropical areas of the world. Settlers clear land, selling valuable timber to transnational companies. The newly cleared soils are planted with fast-growing pasture that often is relatively impervious to water, increasing runoff. Cattle are grazed for the low end of the beef market, ending up in fast food outlets in developed countries.

In Europe and increasingly in America, there is concern about how cattle are raised and treated. There is growing concern about the stress animals undergo in large feedlots, which some believe affects the taste of the meat. Modern packing plants have tried to decrease stress at the time of slaughter to reduce the adrenalin in the muscle tissues, which toughens the meat and gives it an off-putting flavor. Concern for animal welfare is coupled with health and environmental concerns surrounding large feedlots and packing plants.

Europe does not allow injection or implantation of hormones, which is a standard practice of most producers in the United States. In fact, stocker feeders inject their cattle with hormones on penalty of not being able to sell them to a feedlot. If the cattle are not injected in the neck, meat quality will be negatively impacted around the site of injection, which is often easiest to administer into the prime cuts. Hormones increase the rate of growth and nutrient utilization, but increasing evidence suggests that they negatively impact meat taste and tenderness. They are also viewed as a health hazard in Europe, as well as having a negative impact on animal health, as the use of these steroids puts additional stress on the animal. As a result, Europe banned American beef produced with artificial hormones in 1989, which has resulted in a continuing trade battle.

Mad cow disease (bovine spongiform encephalopathies, or BSE) has been linked to the fatal Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (CJD) through human consumption of meat from cattle with the prion disease. It is thought to be transmitted from one animal to another through the consumption of bone meal from sick but undiagnosed cattle or sheep and from animals to humans by eating meat that contains prions transferred by the nervous system. Thus the brains and the meat that is in contact with the spinal column are particularly suspect. In parts of Europe, the sale of meat on the bone has been forbidden. As a result, beef consumption has dropped precipitously and exports have been banned altogether.

Foot and mouth disease outbreaks can cripple production and exports, as occurred in Britain, Argentina, and Europe in 2001. In contrast to BSE, foot and mouth disease is not transferable to humans, but it is easily passed among hooved species and greatly reduces the productivity in infected cattle herds. Increased globalization of the food system may be related to both outbreaks.

Bibliography

The Council of Agricultural Science and Technology. AnimalAgriculture and Global Food Supply. Ames, Iowa: Council of Agricultural Science and Technology, 1999.

Economic Research Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture. Livestock, Dairy and Poultry Situation and Outlook. LDPM-80. Washington, D.C., 2001.

Foutz, C. P., H. G. Dolesal, T. L. Gardner, D. R. Gill, J. L. Hensley, and J. B. Morgan. "Anabolic Implant Effects on Steer Performance, Carcass Traits, Subprimal Yields, and Longissmus Muscle Properties." Journal of Animal Science 75 (1997): 1256–1265.

Higgins, L., and R. A. Jussaume, Jr. "The Viability of Niche Marketing with Global Commodity Chains: An Example from Beef." International Journal of Sociology of Agriculture and Food 17 (1998): 45–66.

Pillsbury, Richard. No Foreign Food: The American Diet in Time and Place. Boulder, Colo: Westview Press, 1998.

Putnam, Judith Jones, and Jane E. Allshouse. Food Consumption,Prices and Expenditutres, 1970–97. Statistical Bulletin No. 965. Food and Rural Economics Division/Economic Research Service/USDA.Washington, D.C. 1999.

Rouse, John E. World Cattle. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1990.

Walsh, John. "The Social Context of Technological Change: The Case of the Retail Food Industry." The Sociological Quarterly 32, 3 (1991): 447–468.

Whitaker, James W. Feedlot Empire: Beef Cattle Feeling in Illinois and Iowa, 1840–1900. Ames: Iowa State University Press, 1975.

Willham, R. L. "Genetic Improvement of Beef Cattle in the United States: Cattle, People and Their Interaction." Journal of Animal Science 54 (1982): 659–666.

—Cornelia Butler Flora

LearnThatWord.com is a free vocabulary and spelling program where you only pay for results!

Members of the family Bovidae. There are wild cattle (Bibos spp.) including Banteng, Gaur and Gayal. They resemble domestic cattle but have a hump on their back. Domestic cattle are all members of the Bos genus. There are two species: Bos taurus or European or British breeds of cattle, and Bos indicus the Zebu or oriental domestic cattle. The common breeds of each are set out below. Interbreeding between the species is common, the offspring being called taurindicus or zeboid cattle.

• beef c. — breeds of cattle bred especially for the economic production of meat. See beef breeds.
• c. breeding herds — commercial cattle herds which produce beef calves for sale to fatteners.
• commercial c. — cattle used to produce milk or meat for the general market.
• dairy c. — cattle used solely for the production of dairy products. Called also milk or milch cows. See dairy breeds.
• c. dog — dogs used to herd and work cattle. See australian cattle dog, working dogs.
• dual-purpose c. — most breeds of cattle in continental Europe are of this type. They produce heavy yields of milk and are also good carcass cattle. See dual-purpose.
• c. grubs — see hypoderma. Called also warble fly.
• c. louse — see haematopinus and linognathus.
• pedigree c. — cattle that are registered in a recognized stud book.
• purebred c. — cattle produced by matings between members of the same breed, not necessarily pedigreed cattle.
• stud c. — pedigree cattle maintained as a separate herd, whose offspring are ofen sold as breeders, forming a major source of income for the enterprise.
• c. tick — any one of a large variety of tick species, the title being used locally to designate the preponderant species.
• young c. — farmers’ term for weaned calves, yearlings and 2-year old-cattle.

• Ranching and Animal Husbandry - cattle: domesticated ruminant bovines raised for their meat or milk

"Cow" redirects here. For other uses, see Cow (disambiguation).

For other uses, see Cattle (disambiguation).

Cattle
A Swiss Braunvieh cow wearing a cowbell
Conservation status
Domesticated
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Mammalia
Subclass:	Theria
Infraclass:	Eutheria
Order:	Artiodactyla
Family:	Bovidae
Subfamily:	Bovinae
Genus:	Bos
Species:	B. primigenius
Subspecies:	B. p. taurus, B. p. indicus
Binomial name
Bos primigenius Bojanus, 1827[1]
Trinomial name
Bos primigenius taurus, Bos primigenius indicus
Bovine range
Synonyms
Bos taurus, Bos indicus

Cattle (colloquially cows) are the most common type of large domesticated ungulates. They are a prominent modern member of the subfamily Bovinae, are the most widespread species of the genus Bos, and are most commonly classified collectively as Bos primigenius. Cattle are raised as livestock for meat (beef and veal), as dairy animals for milk and other dairy products, and as draft animals (oxen / bullocks) (pulling carts, plows and the like). Other products include leather and dung for manure or fuel. In some countries, such as India, cattle are sacred. From as few as eighty progenitors domesticated in southeast Turkey about 10,500 years ago,^[2] it is estimated that there are now 1.3 billion cattle in the world today.^[3] In 2009, cattle became the first livestock animal to have its genome mapped.^[4]

Contents 1 Species 1.1 Word origin 2 Terminology 2.1 Singular terminology issue 2.2 Other terminology 3 Anatomy 4 Weight 5 Cattle genome 6 Domestication and husbandry 6.1 Sleep 7 Economy 8 Environmental impact 9 Health 10 Oxen 11 Religion, traditions and folklore 11.1 Hindu tradition 11.2 Other traditions 12 In heraldry 13 Population 14 See also 15 Notes 16 References

Species

Main article: Bovini

Cattle were originally identified as three separate species: Bos taurus, the European or "taurine" cattle (including similar types from Africa and Asia); Bos indicus, the zebu; and the extinct Bos primigenius, the aurochs. The aurochs is ancestral to both zebu and taurine cattle. Recently these three have increasingly been grouped as one species, with Bos primigenius taurus, Bos primigenius indicus and Bos primigenius primigenius as the subspecies.^[5]

Zubron, a cross between Wisent and cattle.

Complicating the matter is the ability of cattle to interbreed with other closely related species. Hybrid individuals and even breeds exist, not only between taurine cattle and zebu (such as the sanga cattle, Bos taurus africanus) but also between one or both of these and some other members of the genus Bos – yaks (the dzo or yattle^[6]), banteng, and gaur. Hybrids such as the beefalo breed can even occur between taurine cattle and either species of bison, leading some authors to consider them part of the genus Bos as well.^[7] The hybrid origin of some types may not be obvious – for example, genetic testing of the Dwarf Lulu breed, the only taurine-type cattle in Nepal, found them to be a mix of taurine cattle, zebu, and yak.^[8] However, cattle cannot successfully be hybridized with more distantly related bovines such as water buffalo or African buffalo.

The aurochs originally ranged throughout Europe, North Africa, and much of Asia. In historical times its range became restricted to Europe, and the last known individual died in Masovia, Poland, in about 1627.^[9] Breeders have attempted to recreate cattle of similar appearance to aurochs by crossing traditional types of domesticated cattle, creating the Heck cattle breed.

Word origin

Cattle did not originate as the term for bovine animals. It was borrowed from Old French catel, itself from Latin caput, head, and originally meant movable personal property, especially livestock of any kind, as opposed to real property (the land, which also included wild or small free-roaming animals such as chickens — they were sold as part of the land).^[10] The word is closely related to "chattel" (a unit of personal property) and "capital" in the economic sense.^[11][12] The term replaced earlier Old English feoh "cattle, property" (cf. German: Vieh, Gothic: faihu).

The word cow came via Anglo-Saxon cū (plural cȳ), from Common Indo-European gʷōus (genitive gʷowes) = "a bovine animal", compare Persian Gâv, Sanskrit go, Welsh buwch.^{[citation needed]} The genitive plural of "cū" is "cȳna", which gave the now archaic English plural, and Scots plural, of "kine".

In older English sources such as the King James Version of the Bible, "cattle" refers to livestock, as opposed to "deer" which refers to wildlife. "Wild cattle" may refer to feral cattle or to undomesticated species of the genus Bos. Today, when used without any other qualifier, the modern meaning of "cattle" is usually restricted to domesticated bovines.^{[citation needed]}

Terminology

Look up cattle or cow in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

A Hereford bull

In general, the same words are used in different parts of the world but with minor differences in the definitions. The terminology described here contrasts the differences in definition between the United Kingdom and other British influenced parts of world such as Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Ireland, and the United States.^[13]

• An intact (i.e., not castrated) adult male is called a bull. A wild, young, unmarked bull is known as a micky in Australia.^[14] An unbranded bovine of either sex is called a maverick in the USA and Canada.
• An adult female that has had a calf (or two, depending on regional usage) is a cow.
• A young female before she has had a calf of her own^[15] and is under three years of age is called a heifer ( /ˈhɛfər/ HEF-ər).^[16] A young female that has had only one calf is occasionally called a first-calf heifer.
• Young cattle of both sexes are called calves until they are weaned, then weaners until they are a year old in some areas; in other areas, particularly with male beef cattle, they may be known as feeder-calves or simply feeders. After that, they are referred to as yearlings or stirks^[17] if between one and two years of age.^[18]
• A castrated male is called a steer in the United States; older steers are often called bullocks in other parts of the world^[19] but in North America this term refers to a young bull. Piker bullocks are micky bulls that were caught, castrated and then later lost.^[14] In Australia, the term "Japanese ox" is used for grain fed steers in the weight range of 500 to 650 kg that are destined for the Japanese meat trade.^[20] In North America, draft cattle under four years old are called working steers. Improper or late castration on a bull results in it becoming a coarse steer known as a stag in Australia, Canada and New Zealand.^[21] In some countries an incompletely castrated male is known also as a rig.
• A castrated male (occasionally a female or in some areas a bull) kept for draft purposes is called an ox (plural oxen); "ox" may also be used to refer to some carcass products from any adult cattle, such as ox-hide, ox-blood or ox-liver.^[16]
• A springer is a cow or heifer close to calving.^[22]
• In all cattle species, a female that is the twin of a bull usually becomes an infertile partial intersex, and is a freemartin.
• Neat (horned oxen, from which neatsfoot oil is derived), beef (young ox) and beefing (young animal fit for slaughtering) are obsolete terms, although poll, pollard or polled cattle are still terms in use for naturally hornless animals, or in some areas also for those that have been disbudded.
• Cattle raised for human consumption are called beef cattle. Within the beef cattle industry in parts of the United States, the older term beef (plural beeves) is still used to refer to an animal of either sex. Some Australian, Canadian, New Zealand and British people use the term beast, especially for single animals when the sex is unknown.^[23]
• Cattle of certain breeds bred specifically for milk production are called milking or dairy cattle;^[13] a cow kept to provide milk for one family may be called a house cow or milker.
• The adjective applying to cattle in general is usually bovine. The terms "bull", "cow" and "calf" are also used by extension to denote the sex or age of other large animals, including whales, hippopotamuses, camels, elk and elephants

See also: List of animal names

Singular terminology issue

A herd of Cattle

Cattle can only be used in the plural and not in the singular: it is a plurale tantum.^[24] Thus one may refer to "three cattle" or "some cattle", but not "one cattle". There is no universally used singular form in modern English of "cattle", other than the sex- and age-specific terms such as cow, bull, steer and heifer. Historically, "ox" was a non-sex-specific term for adult cattle, but generally this is now used only for draft cattle, especially adult castrated males. The term is also incorporated into the names of other species such as the musk ox and "grunting ox" (yak), and is used in some areas to describe certain cattle products such as ox-hide and ox-tail.^[25]

A Brahman calf

"Cow" is in general use as a singular for the collective "cattle", despite the objections by those who insist it to be a female-specific term. Although the phrase "that cow is a bull" is absurd from a lexicographic standpoint, the word "cow" is easy to use when a singular is needed and the sex is unknown or irrelevant - when "there is a cow in the road", for example. 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. Merriam-Webster, a U.S. dictionary, recognizes the non-sex-specific use of "cow" as an alternate definition,^[26] whereas Collins, a UK dictionary, does not.^[27]

Colloquially, more general non-specific terms may denote cattle when a singular form is needed. Australian, New Zealand and British farmers use the term "beast" or "cattle beast". "Bovine" is also used in Britain. The term "critter" is common in the western United States and Canada, particularly when referring to young cattle.^[28] In some areas of the American South (particularly the Appalachian region), where both dairy and beef cattle are present, an individual animal was once called a "beef critter", though that term is becoming archaic.

Other terminology

	A cow's moo
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Cattle raised for human consumption are called "beef cattle". Within the beef cattle industry in parts of the United States, the term "beef" (plural "beeves") is still used in its archaic sense to refer to an animal of either sex. Cows of certain breeds that are kept for the milk they give are called "dairy cows" or "milking cows" (formerly "milch cows"). Most young male offspring of dairy cows are sold for veal, and may be referred to as veal calves.

The term "dogies" is used to describe orphaned calves in the context of ranch work in the American west, as in "Keep them dogies moving".^[29] In some places, a cow kept to provide milk for one family is called a "house cow". Other obsolete terms for cattle include "neat" (this use survives in "neatsfoot oil", extracted from the feet and legs of cattle), and "beefing" (young animal fit for slaughter).

An onomatopoeic term for one of the commonest sounds made by cattle is "moo", and this sound is also called lowing. There are a number of other sounds made by cattle, including calves bawling, and bulls bellowing. The bullroarer makes a sound similar to a territorial call made by bulls.^{[citation needed]}

Anatomy

Cattle have one stomach with four compartments. They are the rumen, reticulum, omasum, and abomasum, with the rumen being the largest compartment. The reticulum, the smallest compartment, is known as the "honeycomb". Cattle sometimes consume metal objects which are deposited in the reticulum and irritation from the metal objects causes hardware disease. 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".

Dairy farming and the milking of cattle - once performed largely by hand, but now usually replaced by machine – exploits the cow's ruminant biology.

Cattle are ruminants, meaning that they have a digestive system that allows use of otherwise indigestible foods by regurgitating and rechewing them as "cud". The cud is then reswallowed 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 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 them 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 lb). The world record for the heaviest bull was 1,740 kilograms (3,840 lb), a Chianina named Donetto, when he was exhibited at the Arezzo show in 1955.^[30] The heaviest steer was eight year old ‘Old Ben’, a Shorthorn/Hereford cross weighing in at 2,140 kilograms (4,720 lb) in 1910.^[31] Steers are generally killed before reaching 750 kilograms (1,650 lb). Breeding stock usually live to about 15 years (occasionally as much as 25 years). The oldest recorded cow, Big Bertha, died at the age of 48 in 1993.

A common misconception about cattle (particularly bulls) is that they are enraged by the color 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.^[32][33] 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 color of the cape that angers the bull, but rather the movement of the fabric that irritates the bull and incites it to charge.

Having two kinds of color receptors in the cone cells in their retinas, cattle are dichromatic, as are most other non-primate land mammals.^[34][35]

A cow's udder contains 2 pairs of mammary glands.

Weight

This unreferenced section requires citations to ensure verifiability.

Adult weights of cows always depend on the breed. Smaller kinds of cattle such as Dexter and Jersey adults range anywhere between 600 and 1000 lbs (or 272 kg to 454 kg). Large Continental breeds such as Charolais, Marchigiana, Belgian Blue and Chianina adults range up to 1400 to 2500 lbs (or 635 kg to 1134 kg). British-breed cows such as Hereford, Angus, and Shorthorn mature between 1000 to 2000 lbs (or 454 kg to 907 kg), occasionally higher particularly with Angus and Hereford.

Bulls will always be a bit larger than cows by a few extra hundred pounds. Chianina bulls can weigh up to 3300 lbs (~1500 kg); British bulls like Angus and Hereford can weigh as little as 2000 lbs (907 kg) to as much as 3000 lbs (1361 kg).

It is difficult to generalize or average out the weight of all cattle because different kinds have different averages of weights. However, according to some sources, the average weight of all cattle is 1660 lbs (753 kg). Finishing steers in the feedlot average out to ~1400 lbs (or around 640 kg); Cows about 1600 lbs (725 kg), and Bulls about 2400 lbs (~1090 kg).

Cattle genome

Further information: Bovine genome

In the April 24, 2009 edition of the journal Science, it was reported that a team of researchers led by the National Institutes of Health and the U.S. Department of Agriculture has mapped the bovine genome.^[36] The scientists found that cattle have approximately 22,000 genes, and 80 percent of their genes are shared with humans, and they have approximately 1,000 genes they share with dogs and rodents, but are not found in humans. Using this bovine "HapMap", researchers can track the differences between the breeds that affect the quality of meat and milk yields.^[37]

Domestication and husbandry

Texas Longhorns are a U.S. breed

Cattle occupy a unique role in human history, domesticated since at least the early Neolithic. Modern genetic research suggests that the entire modern domestic stock may have arisen from as few as 80 aurochs tamed in the upper reaches of Mesopotamia about 10,500 years ago near the villages of Çayönü Tepesi in southeastern Turkey and Dja'de el-Mughara in northern Iraq.^[2] They are raised for meat (beef cattle), dairy products and hides. They are also used as draft animals and in certain sports. Some consider cattle the oldest form of wealth, and cattle raiding consequently one of the earliest forms of theft.

A Hereford being inspected for ticks; cattle are often restrained or confined in Cattle crushes when given medical attention.

This young animal has a nose ring to prevent it from suckling, which is usually to assist in weaning.

Cattle are often raised by allowing herds to graze on the grasses of large tracts of rangeland. Raising cattle in this manner allows the use of land that might be unsuitable for growing crops. The most common interactions with cattle involve daily feeding, cleaning and milking. Many routine husbandry practices involve ear tagging, dehorning, loading, medical operations, vaccinations and hoof care, as well as training for agricultural shows and preparations. There are also some cultural differences in working with cattle- the cattle husbandry of Fulani men rests on behavioural techniques, whereas in Europe cattle are controlled primarily by physical means like fences.^[38] Breeders use cattle husbandry to reduce M. bovis infection susceptibility by selective breeding and maintaining herd health to avoid concurrent disease.^[39]

Cattle are farmed for beef, veal, dairy, leather and they are less commonly used for conservation grazing, simply to maintain grassland for wildlife – for example, in Epping Forest, England. They are often used in some of the most wild places for livestock. Depending on the breed, cattle can survive on hill grazing, heaths, marshes, moors and semi desert. Modern cows are more commercial than older breeds and, having become more specialized, are less versatile. For this reason many smaller farmers still favor old breeds, like the dairy breed of cattle Jersey.

In Portugal, Spain, Southern France and some Latin American countries, bulls are used in the activity of bullfighting; a similar activity, Jallikattu, is seen in South India; in many other countries this is illegal. Other activities such as bull riding are seen as part of a rodeo, especially in North America. Bull-leaping, a central ritual in Bronze Age Minoan culture (see Bull (mythology)), still exists in southwestern France. In modern times, cattle are also entered into agricultural competitions. These competitions can involve live cattle or cattle carcases in hoof and hook events.

In terms of food intake by humans, consumption of cattle is less efficient than of grain or vegetables with regard to land use, and hence cattle grazing consumes more area than such other agricultural production when raised on grains.^[40] Nonetheless, cattle and other forms of domesticated animals can sometimes help to use plant resources in areas not easily amenable to other forms of agriculture.

Sleep

Further information: Sleep (non-human)

The average sleep time of a domestic cow is about 4 hours a day.^[41]

Economy

Holstein cattle are the primary dairy breed, bred for high milk production.

The meat of adult cattle is known as beef, and that of calves is veal. Other animal parts are also used as food products, including blood, liver, kidney, heart and oxtail. Cattle also produce milk, and dairy cattle are specifically bred to produce large quantities of milk that is processed and sold for human consumption. Cattle today are the basis of a multi-billion dollar industry worldwide. The international trade in beef for 2000 was over $30 billion and represented only 23 percent of world beef production. (Clay 2004). The production of milk, which is also made into cheese, butter, yogurt, and other dairy products, is comparable in economic size to beef production and provides an important part of the food supply for many of the world's people. Cattle hides, used for leather to make shoes, couches and clothing, are another widespread product. Cattle remain broadly used as draft animals in many developing countries, such as India.

Environmental impact

Cattle have been identified as a contributing factor in the rise in greenhouse gas emissions.

A report from the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) states that the livestock sector is "responsible for 18% of greenhouse gas emissions".^[42] The report concludes that, unless changes are made, the damage thought to be linked to livestock may more than double by 2050, as demand for meat increases. Another concerns is manure, which if not well managed can lead to adverse environmental consequence. However, manure also is a valuable source of nutrients and organic matter when used as a fertilizer. ^[43] Manure was used as a fertilizer on about 15.8 million acres of US cropland in 2006, with manure from cattle accounting for nearly 70 percent of manure applications to soybeans and about 80 percent or more of manure applications to corn, wheat, barley, oats and sorghum.^[44] Further, substitution of manure for synthetic fertilizers in crop production can be environmentally significant, as between 43 and 88 MJ of fossil fuel energy are used per kg of nitrogen in manufacture of synthetic nitrogenous fertilizers.^[45]

One of the cited changes suggested to reduce greenhouse gas emissions is intensification of the livestock industry, since intensification leads to less land for a given level of production. This assertion is supported by studies of the US beef production system, suggesting practices prevailing in 2007 involved 8.6 percent less fossil fuel use, 16.3 percent less greenhouse gas emissions, 12.1 percent less water use and 33.0 percent less land use, per unit mass of beef produced, than those used in 1977.^[46] However, these numbers included not only feedlots, but also feed production, forage-based cow-calf operations, backgrounding before cattle enter a feedlot, and animals culled from the dairy industry.^[47] The percentage of cattle kept in confined feedlot conditions is increasing. In the USA, 47.7 percent of all cattle were kept in operations of 500 head or more in 2009.^[48] Thus, based on size and regulatory definitions,^[49] A significant percentage of beef and dairy cattle are housed in concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs). CAFOs are defined as "new and existing operations which stable or confine and feed or maintain for a total of 45 days or more in any 12-month period more than the number of animals specified." and where there is no natural grazing of forage.^[50] They may be designated as small, medium and large, with varying requirements for handling water pollution issues.^[49]

A CAFO that discharges pollutants is required to obtain a permit, which requires a plan to manage nutrient runoff, manure, chemicals, contaminants, and other wastewater pursuant to the Clean Water Act.^[51] The regulations involving CAFO permitting have been extensively litigated.^[52] Supporters of CAFO management state that wastewater and manure nutrients are safely applied to land at agronomic rates for use by forages or crops. They argue that various constituents of wastewater and manure, such as organic contaminants and pathogens, are retained, inactivated or degraded on the land with application at such rates. Research to date suggests that additional evidence is needed to test reliability of such assumptions.^[53] However, the concerns raised by opponents of CAFOs have included risks of contaminated water due to feedlot runoff,^[54] soil erosion, human and animal exposure to toxic chemicals, development of antibiotic resistant bacteria and an increase in E. coli contamination.^[55] While research suggests some of these impacts can be mitigated by developing wastewater treatment systems^[54] and planting cover crops in larger setback zones,^[56] the Union of Concerned Scientists released a report in 2008 concluding that CAFOs are generally unsustainable and externalize costs.^[57]

In 2009, there were an estimated 950,000 cattle operations in the USA. The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) noted that ^[48] In 2001, the EPA (US Environmental Protection Agency) tallied 5,990 cattle CAFOs then regulated, consisting of beef (2,200), dairy (3,150), heifer (620) and veal operations (20).^[58] Since that time EPA has established CAFOs as an enforcement priority. EPA enforcement highlights for fiscal year 2010 indicated enforcement actions against 12 cattle CAFOs for violations that included failures to obtain a permit, failures to meet the terms of a permit, and discharges of contaminated water.^[59]

Grazing by cattle at low intensities can create a favourable environment for native herbs and forbs; however, in many world regions cattle are reducing biodiversity due to overgrazing.^[60] A survey of refuge managers on 123 National Wildlife Refuges in the US tallied 86 species of wildlife considered positively affected and 82 considered negatively affected by refuge cattle grazing or haying.^[61] Proper management of pastures, notably managed intensive rotational grazing (MIRG) and grazing at low intensities can lead to less use of fossil fuel energy, increased recapture of carbon dioxide, fewer ammonia emissions into the atmosphere, reduced soil erosion, better air quality and less water pollution.^[57]

Some microbes in the cattle gut carry out anaerobic process known as methanogenesis, which produces methane. Cattle and other livestock emit about 80 to 93 Tg of methane per year,^[62], accounting for an estimated 37 percent of anthropogenic methane emissions,^[63] and additional methane is produced by anaerobic fermentation of manure in manure lagoons and other manure storage structures.^[64] The 100-year global warming potential of methane, including effects on ozone and stratospheric water vapor, is 25 times as great as that of carbon dioxide.^[65] Methane's effect on global warming is correlated with changes in atmospheric methane content, not with emissions. The net change in atmospheric methane content was recently about 1 Tg per year,^[66] and in some recent years there has been no increase in atmospheric methane content.^[67] Mitigation options for reducing methane emission from ruminant enteric fermentation include genetic selection, immunization, rumen defaunation, diet modification and grazing management, among others.^[68][69][70] While cattle fed forage actually produce more methane than grain-fed cattle, the increase may be offset by the increased carbon recapture of pastures, which recapture three times the CO₂ of cropland used for grain.^[57]

Health

Cow urine is commonly used in India for medical purposes. It is distilled and then consumed by patients seeking treatment for a wide variety of illnesses. At present, there is no conclusive medical evidence that this has any effect.^[71]

Oxen

This unreferenced section requires citations to ensure verifiability.

Main article: Ox

Draft Zebus in Mumbai, Maharashtra, India

Oxen (singular ox) are cattle trained as draft animals. Often they are adult, castrated males of larger breeds, although females and entire bulls are also used in some areas. Usually an ox is over four years old due to the need for training and to allow it to grow to full size. Oxen are used for plowing, transport, hauling cargo, grain-grinding by trampling or by powering machines, irrigation by powering pumps, and wagon drawing. Oxen were commonly used to skid logs in forests, and sometimes still are, in low-impact select-cut logging. Oxen are most often used in teams of two, paired, for light work such as carting, with additional pairs added when more power is required, sometimes up to a total of twenty or more.

An ox is a mature bovine who has learned to respond appropriately to a teamster's signals. These signals are given by verbal commands or by noise (whip cracks). Verbal commands vary according to dialect and local tradition. In one tradition in North America, the commands are:^{[citation needed]}

• Get up: walk forward
• Whoa: stop
• Back up: go backwards
• Gee: turn right
• Haw: turn left

Riding an ox in Hova, Sweden.

Oxen can pull harder and longer than horses. Though not as fast as horses, they are less prone to injury because they are more sure-footed.

Many oxen are used worldwide, especially in developing countries. About 11.3 million draft oxen are used in Sub-Saharan Africa. ^[72] In India, the number of draft cattle in 1998 was estimated at 65.7 million head. ^[73] It has been estimated that about half the world's crop production depends on land preparation (such as plowing) made possible by animal traction.^[74]

Ure-Ox

Religion, traditions and folklore

Main article: Cattle in religion

Hindu tradition

In Hinduism, the cow is a symbol of wealth, strength, abundance, selfless giving and a full Earthly life.

Cattle are venerated within the Hindu religion of India.^{[clarification needed]} According to Vedic scriptures they are to be treated with the same respect 'as one's mother' because of the milk they provide; "The cow is my mother" (Mahabharata)^[75] They appear in numerous stories from the Puranas and Vedas. The deity Krishna was brought up in a family of cowherders, and given the name Govinda (protector of the cows). Also Shiva is traditionally said to ride on the back of a bull named Nandi. In ancient rural India every household had a few cows which provided a constant supply of milk and a few bulls that helped as draft animals.^{[citation needed]}

Observant Hindus, even though they might eat meat of other animals, almost always abstain from beef, and the slaughter of cows is considered a heinous sin in mainstream Orthodox Hinduism. Slaughter of cows (including oxen, bulls and calves) is forbidden by law in several states of the Indian Union. McDonalds outlets in India do not serve any beef burgers. At one time the death sentence was imposed for killing a cow in India,^[76] and as late as 1960, an individual could serve three months in jail for killing a pedestrian, but one year for injuring a cow, and life imprisonment for killing a cow.^[77]

Other traditions

Legend of the founding of Durham Cathedral is that monks carrying the body of Saint Cuthbert were led to the location by a milk maid who had lost her dun cow, which was found resting on the spot.

• The Evangelist St. Luke is depicted as an ox in Christian art.
• In Judaism, as described in Numbers 19:2, the ashes of a sacrificed unblemished red heifer that has never been yoked can be used for ritual purification of people who came into contact with a corpse.
• The ox is one of the 12-year cycle of animals which appear in the Chinese zodiac related to the Chinese calendar. See: Ox (Zodiac).
• The constellation Taurus represents a bull.
• An apocryphal story has it that a cow started the Great Chicago Fire by kicking over a kerosene lamp. Michael Ahern, the reporter who created the cow story, admitted in 1893 that he had fabricated it for more colorful copy.
• On February 18, 1930, Elm Farm Ollie became the first cow to fly in an airplane and also the first cow to be milked in an airplane.
• The first known law requiring branding in North America was enacted on February 5, 1644, by Connecticut. It said that all cattle and pigs had to have a registered brand or earmark by May 1, 1644.^[78]
• The akabeko (赤べこ^?, red cow) is a traditional toy from the Aizu region of Japan that is thought to ward off illness.^[79]
• The case of Sherwood v. Walker -- involving a supposedly barren heifer that was actually pregnant—-first enunciated the concept of mutual mistake as a means of destroying the meeting of the minds in contract law.^{[citation needed]}
• The Maasai tribe of East Africa traditionally believe that all cows on earth are the God-given property of the Maasai.^{[citation needed]}

In heraldry

Cattle are typically represented in heraldry by the bull.

• 

  Arms of Turin, Italy
• 

  Arms of Kaunas, Lithuania
• 

  Arms of Bielsk Podlaski, Poland
• 

  Arms of Turek, Poland

See also: Ciołek coat of arms

Population

The world cattle population is estimated to be about 1.3 billion.^[3] The following table shows the cattle population in 2009^[80]

Africa has about 20,000,000 head of cattle, many of which are raised in traditional ways and serve partly as tokens of their owner's wealth.^{[citation needed]}

Cattle population  (View diagram)

Region	Cattle population
India	281,700,000
Brazil	187,087,000
China	139,721,000
US	96,669,000
EU-27	87,650,000
Argentina	51,062,000
Australia	29,202,000
Mexico	26,489,000
Russian Federation	18,370,000
South Africa	14,187,000
Canada	13,945,000
Other	49,756,000

See also

Agriculture and Agronomy portal

• 1966 anti-cow slaughter agitation
• Aurochs (extinct)
• Bovine genome
• British Cattle Health Initiative
• Bull-baiting
• Bullocky
• Bulls and Cows (game)
• Cattle age determination
• Cattle judging
• Cattle raiding
• Cow tipping
• Cowboy
• Dairy farming
• Dzo
• Factory farming
• Category:Individual cattle
• List of breeds of cattle
• List of domesticated animals

Notes

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2. ^ ^{a b} Bollongino, Ruth & al. Molecular Biology and Evolution. "Modern Taurine Cattle descended from small number of Near-Eastern founders". 7 Mar 2012. Accessed 2 Apr 2012. Op. cit. in Wilkins, Alasdair. io9.com. "DNA reveals that cows were almost impossible to domesticate". 28 Mar 2012. Accessed 2 Apr 2012.
3. ^ ^{a b} Breeds of Cattle at CATTLE TODAY
4. ^ Brown, David (2009-04-23). "Scientists Unravel Genome of the Cow". The Washington Post. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/04/23/AR2009042303453.html. Retrieved 2009-04-23. 
5. ^ Opinions, Bulletin of Zoological Nomenclature 60 (1), 2003
6. ^ "Yattle What?", Washington Post, August 11, 2007
7. ^ Groves, C. P., 1981. Systematic relationships in the Bovini (Artiodactyla, Bovidae). Zeitschrift für Zoologische Systematik und Evolutionsforschung, 4:264-278., quoted in Grubb, Peter (16 November 2005). "Genus Bison". In Wilson, Don E., and Reeder, DeeAnn M., eds. Mammal Species of the World: A Taxonomic and Geographic Reference (3rd ed.). Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2 vols. (2142 pp.). ISBN 978-0-8018-8221-0. OCLC 62265494. http://www.bucknell.edu/msw3/browse.asp?id=14200668. 
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20. ^ Meat & Livestock Australia, Feedback, June/July 2008
21. ^ Sure Ways to Lose Money on Your Cattle
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23. ^ Australians Camdraft Assoc. Retrieved on 2009-7-31
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25. ^ "Ox (1, 2)". Oxford English Dictionary. Oxford University Press. 3rd ed. 2001.
26. ^ Merriam Webster Online
27. ^ Collins Language.com^{[dead link]}
28. ^ "Critter," definition 2.
29. ^ Beales, Terry (1999). "Keep Those Dogies Movin!" (PDF). Texas Animal Health Commission News Release. Archived from the original on 2008-06-02. http://web.archive.org/web/20080602151855/http://www.tahc.state.tx.us/news/pr/1999/1999.08_CattleMove.pdf. Retrieved 2008-06-28. 
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37. ^ BBC: Cow genome 'to transform farming'
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50. ^ "What is a Factory Farm?" Sustainable Table
51. ^ US Code of Federal Regulations 40 CFR 122.23, 40 CFR 122.42
52. ^ See, e.g., Waterkeeper Alliance et al. v. EPA, 399 F.3d 486 (2nd cir. 2005); National Pork Producers Council, et al. v. United States Environmental Protection Agency, 635 F. 3d 738 (5th Cir. 2011).
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80. ^ [1]^{[dead link]}

References

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Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Bull (cattle)

• Bhattacharya, S. 2003. Cattle ownership makes it a man's world. Newscientist.com. Retrieved December 26, 2006.
• Cattle Today (CT). 2006. Website. Breeds of cattle. Cattle Today. Retrieved December 26, 2006
• Clay, J. 2004. World Agriculture and the Environment: A Commodity-by-Commodity Guide to Impacts and Practices. Washington, D.C., USA: Island Press. ISBN 1-55963-370-0.
• Clutton-Brock, J. 1999. A Natural History of Domesticated Mammals. Cambridge UK : Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-63495-4.
• Purdy, Herman R.; R. John Dawes; Dr. Robert Hough (2008). Breeds Of Cattle (2nd ed.). http://www.breedsofcattle.net/.  - A visual textbook containing History/Origin, Phenotype & Statistics of 45 breeds.
• Huffman, B. 2006. The ultimate ungulate page. UltimateUngulate.com. Retrieved December 26, 2006.
• Invasive Species Specialist Group (ISSG). 2005. Bos taurus. Global Invasive Species Database.
• Nowak, R.M. and Paradiso, J.L. 1983. Walker's Mammals of the World. Baltimore, Maryland, USA: The Johns Hopkins University Press. ISBN 0-8018-2525-3
• Oklahoma State University (OSU). 2006. Breeds of Cattle. Retrieved January 5, 2007.
• Public Broadcasting Service (PBS). 2004. Holy cow. PBS Nature. Retrieved January 5, 2007.
• Rath, S. 1998. The Complete Cow. Stillwater, Minnesota, USA: Voyageur Press. ISBN 0-89658-375-9.
• Raudiansky, S. 1992. The Covenant of the Wild. New York: William Morrow and Company, Inc. ISBN 0-688-09610-7.
• Spectrum Commodities (SC). 2006. Live cattle. Spectrumcommodities.com. Retrieved January 5, 2007.
• Voelker, W. 1986. The Natural History of Living Mammals. Medford, New Jersey, USA: Plexus Publishing, Inc. ISBN 0-937548-08-1.
• Yogananda, P. 1946. The Autobiography of a Yogi. Los Angeles, California, USA: Self Realization Fellowship. ISBN 0-87612-083-4.

v t e Extant Artiodactyla species Kingdom: Animalia Phylum: Chordata Class: Mammalia Infraclass: Eutheria Superorder: Laurasiatheria   Suborder Ruminantia Antilocapridae Antilocapra Pronghorn (A. americana) Giraffidae Okapia Okapi (O. johnstoni) Giraffa Giraffe (G. camelopardalis) Moschidae Moschus Himalayan Musk Deer (M. chrysogaster) Siberian Musk Deer (M. moschiferus) Dwarf Musk Deer (M. berezovskii) Black Musk Deer (M. fuscus) Tragulidae Hyemoschus Water Chevrotain (H. aquaticus) Moschiola Indian Spotted Chevrotain (M. indica) Yellow-striped Chevrotain (M. kathygre) Sri Lankan Spotted Chevrotain (M. meminna) Tragulus Java Mouse-deer (T. javanicus) Lesser Mouse-deer (T. kanchil) Greater Mouse-deer (T. napu) Philippine Mouse-deer (T. nigricans) Vietnam Mouse-deer (T. versicolor) Williamson's Mouse-deer (T. williamsoni) Cervidae Large family listed below Bovidae Large family listed below   Family Cervidae Cervinae Muntiacus Indian Muntjac (M. muntjak) Reeves's Muntjac (M. reevesi) Hairy-fronted Muntjac (M. crinifrons) Fea's Muntjac (M. feae) Bornean Yellow Muntjac (M. atherodes) Roosevelt's muntjac (M. rooseveltorum) Gongshan muntjac (M. gongshanensis) Giant Muntjac (M. vuquangensis) Truong Son Muntjac (M. truongsonensis) Leaf muntjac (M. putaoensis) Elaphodus Tufted deer (E. cephalophus) Dama Fallow Deer (D. dama) Persian fallow deer (D. mesopotamica) Axis Chital (A. axis) Rucervus Barasingha (R. duvaucelii) Panolia Eld's Deer (P. eldii) Elaphurus Père David's Deer (E. davidianus) Hyelaphus Hog deer (H. porcinus) Calamian Deer (H. calamianensis) Bawean Deer (H. kuhlii) Rusa Sambar Deer (R. unicolor) Rusa Deer (R. timorensis) Philippine Sambar (R. mariannus) Philippine Spotted Deer (R. alfredi) Cervus Red Deer (C. elaphus) Elk (C. canadensis) Thorold's deer (C. albirostris) Sika Deer (C. nippon) Capreolinae Alces Moose (A. alces) Hydropotes Water deer (H. inermis) Capreolus Roe Deer (C. capreolus) Siberian Roe Deer (C. pygargus) Rangifer Reindeer (R. tarandus) Hippocamelus Taruca (H. antisensis) South Andean Deer (H. bisulcus) Mazama Red Brocket (M. americana) Small Red Brocket (M. bororo) Merida Brocket (M. bricenii) Dwarf Brocket (M. chunyi) Gray Brocket (M. gouazoubira) Pygmy Brocket (M. nana) Amazonian Brown Brocket (M. nemorivaga) Yucatan Brown Brocket (M. pandora) Little Red Brocket (M. rufina) Central American Red Brocket (M. temama) Ozotoceros Pampas deer (O. bezoarticus) Blastocerus Marsh Deer (B. dichotomus) Pudu Northern Pudu (P. mephistophiles) Pudú (P. pudu) Odocoileus White-tailed deer (O. virginianus) Mule deer (O. hemionus)   Family Bovidae Cephalophinae Cephalophus Abbott's Duiker (C. spadix) Aders' Duiker (C. adersi) Bay Duiker (C. dorsalis) Black Duiker (C. niger) Black-fronted Duiker (C. nigrifrons) Blue Duiker (C. monticola) Harvey's Duiker (C. harveyi) Jentink's Duiker (C. jentinki) Maxwell's Duiker (C. maxwellii) Red Forest Duiker (C. natalensis) Ogilby's Duiker (C. ogilbyi) Peters's Duiker (C. callipygus) Red-flanked Duiker (C. rufilatus) Ruwenzori Duiker (C. rubidis) Weyns's Duiker (C. weynsi) White-bellied Duiker (C. leucogaster) Yellow-backed Duiker (C. Sylvicultor) Zebra Duiker (C. zebra) Sylvicapra Common Duiker (S. grimmia) Hippotraginae Hippotragus Roan Antelope (H. equinus) Sable Antelope (H. niger) Oryx East African Oryx (O. beisa) Scimitar Oryx (O. dammah) Gemsbok (O. gazella) Arabian Oryx (O. leucoryx) Addax Addax (A. nasomaculatus) Reduncinae Kobus Upemba Lechwe (K. anselli) Waterbuck (K. ellipsiprymnus) Kob (K. kob) Lechwe (K. leche) Nile Lechwe (K. megaceros) Puku (K. vardonii) Redunca Southern Reedbuck (R. arundinum) Mountain Reedbuck (R. fulvorufula) Bohor Reedbuck (R. redunca) Aepycerotinae Aepyceros Impala (A. melampus) Peleinae Pelea Grey Rhebok (P. capreolus) Alcelaphinae Beatragus Hirola (B. hunteri) Damaliscus Korrigum (D. korrigum) Common Tsessebe (D. lunatus) Bontebok (D. pygargus) Bangweulu Tsessebe (D. superstes) Alcelaphus Hartebeest (A. buselaphus) Red Hartebeest (A. caama) Lichtenstein's Hartebeest (A. lichtensteinii) Connochaetes Black Wildebeest (C. gnou) Blue Wildebeest (C. taurinus) Pantholopinae Pantholops Tibetan antelope (P. hodgsonii) Caprinae Large subfamily listed below Bovinae Large subfamily listed below Antilopinae Large subfamily listed below   Family Bovidae (subfamily Caprinae) Ammotragus Barbary Sheep (A. lervia) Budorcas Takin (B. taxicolor) Capra Wild goat (C. aegagrus) West Caucasian tur (C. caucasia) East Caucasian tur (C. cylindricornis) Markhor (C. falconeri) Alpine ibex (C. ibex) Nubian ibex (C. nubiana) Spanish ibex (C. pyrenaica) Siberian ibex (C. sibirica) Walia ibex (C. walie) Hemitragus Nilgiri tahr (H. hylocrius) Arabian tahr (H. jayakari) Himalayan tahr (H. jemlahicus) Naemorhedus Red goral (N. baileyi) Japanese serow (N. crispus) Long-tailed goral (N. caudatus) Himalayan goral (N. goral) Mainland serow (N. sumatraensis) Taiwan serow (N. swinhoei) Oreamnos Mountain goat (O. americanus) Ovibos Muskox (O. moschatus) Ovis Argali (O. ammon) Domestic sheep (O. aries) Bighorn Sheep (O. canadensis) Dall Sheep (O. dalli) Mouflon (O. musimon) Snow sheep (O. nivicola) Urial (O. orientalis) Pseudois Bharal (P. nayaur) Dwarf blue Sheep (P. schaeferi) Rupicapra Pyrenean chamois (R. pyrenaica) Chamois (R. rupicapra)   Family Bovidae (subfamily Bovinae) Boselaphini Tetracerus Four-horned Antelope (T. quadricornis) Boselaphus Nilgai (B. tragocamelus) Bovini Bubalus Water Buffalo (B. bubalus) Lowland Anoa (B. depressicornis) Mountain Anoa (B. quarlesi) Tamaraw (B. mindorensis) Bos Banteng (B. javanicus) Gaur (B. gaurus) Yak (B. mutus) Cattle (B. taurus) Kouprey (B. sauveli) Zebu (B. indicus) Pseudonovibos Kting Voar (P. spiralis) Pseudoryx Saola (P. nghetinhensis) Syncerus African Buffalo (S. caffer) Bison American Bison (B. bison) Wisent (B. bonasus) Strepsicerotini Tragelaphus Sitatunga (T. spekeii) Nyala (T. angasii) Bushbuck (T. scriptus) Mountain Nyala (T. buxtoni) Lesser Kudu (T. imberbis) Greater Kudu (T. strepsiceros) Bongo (T. eurycerus) Taurotragus Common eland (T. oryx) Giant eland (T. derbianus)   Family Bovidae (subfamily Antilopinae) Antilopini Ammodorcas Dibatag (A. clarkei) Antidorcas Springbok (A. marsupialis) Antilope Blackbuck (A. cervicapra) Gazella Mountain Gazelle (G. gazella) Neumann's Gazelle (G. erlangeri) Speke's Gazelle (G. spekei) Dorcas Gazelle (G. dorcas) Saudi Gazelle (G. saudiya) Chinkara (G. bennettii) Thomson's Gazelle (G. thomsonii) Red-fronted Gazelle (G. rufifrons) Dama Gazelle (G. dama) Grant's Gazelle (G. granti) Soemmerring's Gazelle (G. soemmerringii) Cuvier's Gazelle (G. cuvieri) Rhim Gazelle (G. leptoceros) Goitered Gazelle (G. subgutturosa) Litocranius Gerenuk (L. walleri) Procapra Mongolian gazelle (P. gutturosa) Goa (P. picticaudata) Przewalski's gazelle (P. przewalskii) Saigini Pantholops Tibetan antelope (P. hodgsonii) Saiga Saiga Antelope (S. tatarica) Neotragini Dorcatragus Beira (D. megalotis) Madoqua Günther's Dik-dik (M. guentheri) Kirk's Dik-dik (M. kirkii) Silver Dik-dik (M. piacentinii) Salt's Dik-dik (M. saltiana) Neotragus Bates's Pygmy Antelope (N. batesi) Suni (N. moschatus) Royal Antelope (N. pygmaeus) Oreotragus Klipspringer (O. oreotragus) Ourebia Oribi (O. ourebi) Raphicerus Steenbok (R. campestris) Cape Grysbok (R. melanotis) Sharpe's Grysbok (R. sharpei)   Suborder Suina Suidae Babyrousa Buru Babirusa (B. babyrussa) North Sulawesi Babirusa (B. celebensis) Togian Babirusa (B. togeanensis) Hylochoerus Giant forest hog (H. meinertzhageni) Phacochoerus Desert Warthog (P. aethiopicus) Warthog (P. africanus) Porcula Pygmy Hog (P. salvania) Potamochoerus Bushpig (P. larvatus) Red River Hog (P. porcus) Sus Palawan Bearded Pig (S. ahoenobarbus) Bornean bearded pig (S. barbatus) Indo-chinese Warty Pig (S. bucculentus) Visayan Warty Pig (S. cebifrons) Celebes Warty Pig (S. celebensis) Flores Warty Pig (S. heureni) Oliver's Warty Pig (S. oliveri) Philippine Warty Pig (S. philippensis) Boar (S. scrofa) Timor warty pig (S. timoriensis) Javan Pig (S. verrucosus) Tayassuidae Tayassu White-lipped Peccary (T. pecari) Catagonus Chacoan Peccary (C. wagneri) Pecari Collared Peccary (P. tajacu) Giant Peccary (P. maximus)   Suborder Tylopoda Camelidae Lama Llama (L. glama) Guanaco (L. guanicoe) Vicugna Vicuña (V. vicugna) Alpaca (V. pacos) Camelus Dromedary (C. dromedarius) Bactrian Camel (C. bactrianus)   Cetartiodactyla (unranked clade, higher than Artiodactyla) Hippopotamidae Hippopotamus Hippopotamus (H. amphibius) Choeropsis Pygmy Hippopotamus (C. liberiensis)

v t e Heraldic creatures Beasts Bear Boar Bull/Ox Dog Camelopard (giraffe) Hind/Stag (deer) Kangaroo Leopard Lion Tiger Wolf Birds Cock Dove Eagle Martlet Pelican Rook Legendary creatures Basilisk Biscione Chollima Cockatrice Dragon Enfield Garuda Griffin/Keythong Harpy Lindworm Manticore Mermaid Phoenix Salamander Sea-horse Sea-lion Turul Unicorn Wyvern Fish Dolphin Ged Hippocampus Lucy (esox) Scallop Others Bat Bee Crapaudy (toad) Emmet (ant) Serpent

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Dansk (Danish)
n. pl. - kvæg, kreaturer

idioms:

• cattle grid    kreaturrist

Nederlands (Dutch)
(rund)vee

Français (French)
n. pl. - bovins

idioms:

• cattle grid    grille (au sol qui empêche le passage du bétail)

Deutsch (German)
n. pl. - Vieh, Rindvieh

idioms:

• cattle grid    Grube mit Gitterrost als Hindernis für Rinder

Ελληνική (Greek)
n. - βοοειδή

idioms:

• cattle grid    σχάρα (που επιτρέπει τη διέλευση τροχοφόρων αλλά όχι ζώων)

Italiano (Italian)
bestiame

idioms:

• cattle grid    griglia di accesso

Português (Portuguese)
n. - gado (m), rebanho (m)

idioms:

• cattle grid    mata-burro (m)

Русский (Russian)
скот

idioms:

• cattle grid    ограда

Español (Spanish)
n. pl. - ganado

idioms:

• cattle grid    rejilla de retención del ganado

Svenska (Swedish)
n. - nötkreatur, fähundar (vard.)

中文（简体）(Chinese (Simplified))
牛, 牲口, 家畜

idioms:

• cattle grid    防止家畜脱出的沟栅

中文（繁體）(Chinese (Traditional))
n. pl. - 牛, 牲口, 家畜

idioms:

• cattle grid    防止家畜脫出的溝柵

한국어 (Korean)
n. pl. - 소, 가축, 하층민

日本語 (Japanese)
n. - 畜牛, 畜生ども, 牛

idioms:

• cattle grid    家畜脱出防止溝

العربيه (Arabic)
‏(الاسم) مواشي, بقر, أبل, أنعام‏

עברית (Hebrew)
n. pl. - ‮בקר, בהמות‬

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