50 Fun Facts About Cows

How many compartments does a cow's stomach have?

The compartments are the rumen, reticulum, omasum and abomasum, and the whole thing counts as a single stomach.

Which compartment of a cow's stomach is known as the "true stomach", the equivalent of a human's?

The rumen does the heavy lifting as a fermentation vat full of microbes, but only the abomasum works like a monogastric stomach.

The smallest compartment of a cow's stomach is nicknamed the "honeycomb". Which one is it?

Its lining really does look like honeycomb, and it is where swallowed nails and wire tend to end up.

Domestic cattle descend from which extinct wild animal?

Mitochondrial DNA suggests the taurine line may trace back to as few as 80 wild animals tamed in upper Mesopotamia.

The wild ancestor of cattle survived in Europe until its last cow died in a Polish forest. In what year?

The final herd in Jaktorów Forest had dwindled to just four animals by 1601, and the species was gone a generation later.

How long is a cow's pregnancy?

That is almost exactly the same as a human pregnancy, and the average interval between calvings is 391 days.

Which country has the most cattle in the world, with almost a third of the global total?

The 2023 count was 307.5 million head, ahead of Brazil's 194.4 million and China's 101.5 million.

Which animal species has the largest total biomass on Earth?

At roughly 400 million tonnes they edge out krill (379 million) and humans (373 million).

Because their eyes sit on the sides of the head, cattle have a field of view of about how many degrees?

The trade-off is binocular vision of only 30° to 50°, compared with about 140° in humans.

Bulls cannot actually see red. So why is a matador's muleta that colour?

Cattle are dichromatic, so it is the movement of the cloth that provokes the charge, not its colour.

About how many hours a day does a domestic cow spend asleep?

Cattle doze lightly on their feet but have to lie down for deep sleep, which is one reason cow tipping is a myth.

What is a young female bovine that has not yet had a calf called?

Once she has her first calf she graduates to being a cow; dairy farmers usually breed heifers at around 13 months old.

In the United States, what is a castrated male bovine called?

In other parts of the world older steers are called bullocks, while an intact adult male is a bull everywhere.

The female twin of a bull calf is usually infertile. What is she called?

Exposure to her brother's testosterone in the womb is what causes the infertility.

On a ranch, what is an unbranded bovine of either sex called?

The word is said to come from Texas rancher Samuel Maverick, who famously refused to brand his cattle.

What term describes cattle that are naturally born without horns?

Aberdeen Angus is the best-known naturally hornless breed, which is one reason it dominates beef herds.

Which shaggy Scottish breed lives in a "fold" rather than a herd?

Queen Elizabeth II started a fold at Balmoral in 1954, and their oily outer hair is the longest of any cattle breed.

Which black-and-white breed dominates industrial dairy farming and is found in more than 160 countries?

The US record holder, Bur-Wall Buckeye Gigi, produced 33,860 kg of milk in a single year in 2016.

Which island banned foreign cattle from 1789 to 2008 to protect its small brown dairy breed?

The breed's milk is high in butterfat with a yellowish tinge, and island cows weigh only 350 to 400 kg.

Humped, droopy-eared cattle of the species Bos indicus, well suited to tropical heat, are known as what?

About 75 breeds exist, split fairly evenly between Africa and the Indian subcontinent, and they were domesticated separately from European cattle.

Which humped American breed, bred from Indian stock, became Australia's most numerous by 2000?

Crossing it with Angus produced the Brangus and with Hereford the Braford, both now breeds in their own right.

In 1873, George Grant brought the first Aberdeen Angus bulls to America. To which state?

The breed comes from the counties of Aberdeen, Banff, Kincardine and Angus in north-eastern Scotland and is solid black or red.

Which town became the first great railhead for Texas cattle drives when Joseph McCoy opened stockyards in 1867?

The route there from Texas became the Chisholm Trail, and McCoy's yards shipped over 36,000 head in their first year.

Texas Longhorns descend from cattle brought to the Americas by which Europeans?

The imports began with Columbus's second voyage and the resulting semi-feral herds developed a high tolerance for heat and drought.

The record horn spread for a Texas Longhorn, set by an animal named Poncho Via, is roughly how wide?

That is wider than a Volkswagen Golf is long, and typical Longhorn horns already exceed 8 feet tip to tip.

Which Italian breed is the world's tallest and heaviest, with bulls up to 1.8 m at the shoulder?

Bulls can reach 1,280 kg, and its meat is the traditional basis of the bistecca alla fiorentina.

The extreme "double muscling" of Belgian Blue cattle is caused by a mutation in which gene?

The muscling narrows the birth canal, so calves are commonly delivered by Caesarean section.

Kobe beef comes from Tajima cattle, a strain of which Wagyu breed?

That breed makes up over 97% of beef cattle in Japan, and the fine marbling is called sashi.

Legend blames Mrs. O'Leary's cow kicking over a lantern for starting which 1871 disaster?

The reporter who invented the cow-and-lantern story admitted in 1893 that he made it up, but the legend outlived him.

In what year did the city council formally exonerate Mrs. O'Leary and her cow?

The blaze had killed around 300 people, destroyed 17,000 buildings and left more than 100,000 people homeless.

In February 1930, a Guernsey named Elm Farm Ollie became the first cow to do what?

She was milked mid-air, and the milk was sealed in cartons and dropped by parachute over St. Louis.

Elsie the Cow has been the advertising mascot of which dairy company since 1936?

The first live Elsie was picked from the company's rotary milking parlour exhibit at the 1939 New York World's Fair and is buried in Plainsboro, New Jersey.

Elsie the Cow's cartoon husband, Elmer the Bull, went on to become the mascot of which product?

Elmer was created in 1940 and lent to the company's chemical division, which is why a bull still smiles from the orange bottle.

Which restaurant chain's advertising features cows holding misspelled "Eat Mor Chikin" signs?

The cows replaced an earlier mascot, an anthropomorphic chicken named Doodles.

Pauline Wayne, the last White House cow, grazed there from 1910 to 1913. Whose cow was she?

On a trip to a Milwaukee dairy show she was mistakenly routed to the Chicago stockyards and rescued just before slaughter.

Blosom of Orangeville, Illinois, the tallest cow ever recorded, stood how tall at the withers?

That is 74.8 inches, taller than most adult humans, and she was measured in May 2014 at the age of 12.

The word "vaccine" comes from Variolae vaccinae, Edward Jenner's Latin name for which disease?

Jenner took pus from milkmaid Sarah Nelmes, who had caught it from a cow named Blossom, and inoculated eight-year-old James Phipps in 1796.

"Mad cow disease" (BSE) is caused by what kind of infectious agent?

The first confirmed case was in the UK in 1986, and some 4 million British cattle were killed in the eradication programme.

Which of these Indian states has no restrictions on cattle slaughter?

Despite widespread bans, the country is the world's largest beef exporter thanks to its water-buffalo meat industry.

In Norse mythology, the primeval cow Auðumbla suckled which being?

Ymir was the ancestor of the frost giants, and the cow herself fed by licking salty ice.

The sacred Apis bull of ancient Egypt was regarded as a living manifestation of which god?

Egyptian cattle were tied to fertility and motherhood, and the goddess Hathor is often shown with bovine horns.

In the nursery rhyme "Hey Diddle Diddle", the cow jumped over what?

The rhyme is the origin of the English expression "over the moon", meaning delighted.

In Munro Leaf's 1936 picture book, what would Ferdinand the bull rather do than fight?

Franco's Spain banned the book, Hitler had it burned, and Disney's 1938 short won an Academy Award.

Babe the Blue Ox is the giant companion of which American folk hero?

The name Babe was given to the ox in a 1916 lumber-company advertising campaign by William B. Laughead.

Cow chip throwing was popularized in 1970 by an annual championship in Beaver, a town in which state?

The record throw is 185 feet 5 inches, set by Robert Deevers in 2001.

In rural South Asia, dried cow dung cakes called "upla" or "kanda" are traditionally used as what?

Fresh dung is also smeared on floors to clean and smooth them, and since 2020 the state of Chhattisgarh has bought dung from farmers for compost.

Farmers make cattle swallow a magnet that stays inside them for life. What does it prevent?

Grazing cattle swallow stray nails and wire, and the magnet holds the metal harmlessly instead of letting it puncture the gut wall.

Cattle have no upper front teeth. What do they have instead?

They press grass against the pad with the lower incisors and tear it, then re-chew it later as cud.

About how much methane does a single cow belch out in a year?

The FAO estimated cattle farming accounted for about 7% of global greenhouse gas emissions in 2015.

What title does the overall winner of Valais's Hérens cow fights receive?

The winners collect ceremonial bells, and the national final has been held every year since 1922.