97 Fun Facts About Cows

How many compartments does a cow's stomach have?

Four compartments — the rumen, reticulum, omasum and abomasum — make up a cow's single stomach, with the rumen by far the largest.

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?

The aurochs (Bos primigenius) is cattle's wild ancestor; mitochondrial DNA suggests the taurine line began with about 80 aurochs tamed in the Near East roughly 10,500 years ago.

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?

A cow's gestation is about nine months, around 283 days, almost exactly the length of a human pregnancy.

Cattle horns and hooves are made mainly of which protein?

Keratin, the same fibrous protein that forms human hair and fingernails, makes up the outer sheath of a cow's horns and the wall of its hooves.

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

Laterally placed eyes give cattle roughly 330° of panoramic vision, but their binocular overlap is only about 30° to 50°, against around 120° 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?

Polled cattle are born hornless; the trait is dominant, and Aberdeen Angus, a breed that is always polled, is the best-known example.

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

Highland cattle are kept in folds, not herds; the breed's long, oily outer coat is the longest of any cattle breed, and Queen Elizabeth II kept a fold at Balmoral.

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

Holsteins, the black-and-white dairy breed of Dutch origin, are bred in more than 160 countries; Bur-Wall Buckeye Gigi, a Wisconsin Holstein, gave 33,860 kg of milk in one year (2016).

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

Jersey banned cattle imports from 1789 to 2008 to keep its Jersey breed pure; the small cows weigh only 350 to 400 kg and give milk rich in butterfat.

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

Zebu (Bos indicus) were domesticated separately from European cattle, in the Indus Valley; about 75 zebu breeds exist, split fairly evenly between Africa and the Indian subcontinent.

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

The Brahman was developed in the USA from Indian zebu stock and thrives in Australia's tropical north; crossing it with Angus produced the Brangus and with Hereford the Braford.

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?

Abilene, Kansas, on the Kansas Pacific railway, was McCoy's choice; the route there from Texas became the Chisholm Trail, and about 35,000 head shipped out in 1867.

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

Spanish colonists brought the first cattle to the Americas, starting with Columbus's second voyage in 1493; their semi-feral descendants in Texas evolved into the drought-hardy Longhorn.

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

The Chianina of Tuscany is the tallest and heaviest cattle breed, with bulls up to 1.8 m at the shoulder and well over 1,200 kg; its meat is the traditional basis of bistecca alla fiorentina.

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

A deletion in the myostatin gene removes a brake on muscle growth; the resulting muscling narrows the cow's birth canal, so Belgian Blue calves are commonly delivered by Caesarean.

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

Tajima cattle are a bloodline of the Japanese Black, which accounts for over 90% of all Wagyu; the fine marbling prized in Kobe beef is called sashi.

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

The Great Chicago Fire of October 1871 was pinned on the O'Leary cow by reporter Michael Ahern, who admitted in 1893 that he had invented the story.

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

The Chicago City Council exonerated Catherine O'Leary and her cow in October 1997, 126 years after a fire that killed about 300 people and destroyed some 17,000 buildings.

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

Elm Farm Ollie flew from Bismarck, Missouri, to St. Louis on 18 February 1930, the first cow to fly in an airplane; she was milked mid-air and the milk parachuted over the city.

Elsie the Cow became the advertising mascot of which dairy company in 1936?

Borden introduced Elsie in 1936; the first live Elsie was picked from Borden'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, created in 1940, was lent to Borden's chemical division, and from the early 1950s his face fronted Elmer's Glue-All, the white glue in the orange-capped bottle.

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

Chick-fil-A's 'Eat Mor Chikin' cows first appeared on an Atlanta billboard in 1995, created by The Richards Group; the chicken in the chain's logo is named Doodles.

Pauline Wayne, the last cow to graze at the White House, belonged to which president?

Pauline Wayne belonged to William Howard Taft; in 1911, en route to a Milwaukee dairy show, she was mistakenly routed into the Chicago stockyards and rescued just before slaughter.

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

Blosom, a Holstein, measured 190 cm (74.8 in) at the withers in May 2014; Guinness confirmed her as the tallest cow ever, and she died in January 2015.

Which protein makes up about 80% of the protein in cow's milk?

Casein makes up about 80% of the protein in cow's milk, with whey proteins such as lactoglobulin the remaining 20%; it curdles with rennet or acid to form cheese curd.

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

BSE is caused by a prion, a misfolded protein with no DNA or RNA; the first confirmed case was in the UK in 1986, and some 4 million British cattle were culled.

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?

The Apis bull, kept at Memphis, was worshipped as the living herald of the creator god Ptah; on its death it was mummified and identified with Osiris as Osiris-Apis.

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

In the rhyme, first printed around 1765 in Mother Goose's Melody, the cow jumped over the moon while the dish ran away with the spoon.

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

Ferdinand would rather sit under his cork tree and smell the flowers; Franco's Spain banned the book, Nazi Germany burned it, 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?

Beaver, Oklahoma, styles itself the Cow Chip Throwing Capital of the World and has held the championship each April since 1970 as part of its Cimarron Territory Celebration.

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

Dried dung cakes are burned as cooking fuel across rural South Asia, giving a slow, smoky heat; fresh dung is also mixed with mud to plaster and smooth floors.

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?

A single cow belches out roughly 100 kg of methane a year; FAO's GLEAM model put cattle at about 7% of all human-caused greenhouse gas emissions in 2015.

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

The overall winner of the Hérens finale at Aproz is crowned 'reine des reines', queen of queens; winners collect ceremonial bells, and organised fights date back to the 1920s.

Turned upside down, which letter of our alphabet still shows the horned ox head it is thought to have begun as?

A descends from the Phoenician letter aleph, named after the West Semitic word for ox. Flip it and the two legs become horns on a triangular head.

Which English doctor took cowpox pus from a milkmaid's hand to create the world's first vaccine?

Edward Jenner called cowpox Variolae vaccinae, pustules of the cow, and the word vaccine comes from that name. The milkmaid had caught it from a cow called Blossom.

Which ingredient of many energy drinks was first isolated from ox bile in 1827?

Taurine takes its name from taurus, the Latin for bull or ox, because two German scientists first isolated it from ox bile. An energy drink carries one to three grams of it a serving.

In Greek myth, Zeus turned himself into a bull to carry which Phoenician princess across the sea to Crete?

Europa stroked the bull's flanks and climbed onto his back, and Zeus swam off with her. The continent of Europe may take its name from her.

Which 1996 blockbuster's airborne computer-generated cow was rebuilt by effects artists from a zebra made for Jumanji?

Twister's effects house, Industrial Light & Magic, also animated the tornadoes, trucks, tractors and whole houses by computer. It was the second-highest-grossing film of 1996.

Before genetic engineering, insulin for people with diabetes was extracted from which organ of cattle and pigs?

Pancreas extract from animals was at first the only way to supply insulin to patients. The cattle version differs from the human hormone by just three amino acids.

A 2008 study of satellite images found that grazing cattle worldwide tend to line up their bodies in which direction?

North–south, like a compass needle: where the two differ, the 8,510 cattle studied tracked magnetic north better than true north. Herdsmen seem never to have noticed the habit.

Which American PC maker, whose founder came from a family cattle farm, shipped its computers in cow-spotted boxes?

Gateway took its spotted livery everywhere it traded. In the late 1990s it began dropping the cows to look more mature to corporate customers.

Which East African people traditionally measure a man's wealth in cattle and drink the animals' blood and milk?

Maasai herders in Kenya and Tanzania drink milk daily and blood only on occasion. A man's standing rests on his herd, his wives and his children.

What is the name of the antibody-rich first milk a cow produces for her newborn calf in the days after birth?

Colostrum matters far more to a calf than to a human baby, who is born with a mother's antibodies. Calves denied it almost always die of bacterial infection.

Which cattle disease was declared eradicated in 2011, making it only the second infection wiped out after smallpox?

Rinderpest is simply German for cattle plague, and its last confirmed case came in 2001. The virus also struck buffalo, giraffes, wildebeest and warthogs.

In the United Kingdom, which wild mammal has been culled in the hope of controlling tuberculosis in cattle?

Badger culls have been argued over for decades, and one large field trial judged they could make no meaningful difference. New Zealand targets an import instead, the brushtail possum.

In the Book of Exodus, who makes the golden calf from the Israelites' earrings while Moses is on Mount Sinai?

Aaron gave in when the Israelites feared Moses would never come back down. Asked to explain himself, he said he threw the gold into the flames and out came a calf.

In Genesis, Joseph tells Pharaoh that his dream of seven lean cows devouring seven fat ones foretells what?

A famine of seven years, after seven years of plenty, was his reading of the dream. Joseph told Pharaoh to store the surplus grain, and the advice made him second-in-command of Egypt.

Which Egyptian goddess of love and music was often shown as a cow, or as a woman crowned with cow horns?

Hathor usually carried a sun disc between her horns. Egyptians revered cows as symbols of motherhood and nourishment because they care for their young and give people milk.

In Hinduism, Nandi the bull serves as the mount and gatekeeper of which god?

Shiva is rarely far from his bull: almost every temple to the god has a stone Nandi seated facing the main shrine. The name means joy in Sanskrit.

Which holy book's second and longest chapter is known in English as The Cow?

The Quran's chapter, Al-Baqarah in Arabic, also holds the scripture's longest single verse, known as the Verse of Loan.

In Greek myth, which god stole his half-brother Apollo's cattle on the very day he was born?

Hermes also built the first lyre that day from a tortoise shell. Apollo ended up letting him keep the cattle in exchange for it.

Which French chemist gave his name to the heat treatment that makes cow's milk safe to drink?

Louis Pasteur worked the method out in the 1860s to stop wine and beer from souring. It was many years before anyone used it on milk.

Which city in Navarre stages the world's most famous running of the bulls each July during the San Fermín festival?

Pamplona's bulls get no rest afterwards: the six that run through the streets in the morning also appear in that afternoon's bullfight.

Which Canadian city, nicknamed Cowtown, hosts a ten-day rodeo and festival called the Stampede every July?

Calgary's rodeo draws more than a million visitors a year, and the city's football team is called the Stampeders.

Which US state, known as the nation's dairyland, has residents who are nicknamed Cheeseheads?

Wisconsin takes the title seriously: it is the only state that makes cheese and butter makers hold a licence to produce either.

In the Chinese legend behind the Qixi Festival, a cowherd is parted by the Milky Way from which heavenly lover?

The Weaver Girl is the star Vega and the cowherd is Altair. Once a year, on the night of the festival, a bridge of magpies reunites them for a single day.

Which country, until 2008 the world's only Hindu kingdom, declared the cow its national animal in 2015?

Nepal bans the slaughter of cows and bulls outright, and one day of its Tihar festival, Gaipuja, is set aside for prayers to cows.

CowParade, the public art show of painted fibreglass cows, traces its origins to a 1998 exhibit in which Swiss city?

Zurich had tried the idea once before, in 1986, with painted lions, the city's own symbol. The first cow exhibit was not called CowParade either, but Land in Sicht.

Which cave in France, found in 1940 by a teenager following his dog, is famed for its painted Hall of the Bulls?

Lascaux has been closed to the public since 1963 because its paintings were deteriorating, so visitors tour replicas of the hall instead.

The Bronze Age Bull-Leaping Fresco, showing an acrobat vaulting over a charging bull, decorated which Minoan palace?

Knossos is full of bull imagery, and this is the best restored of several such panels. Scholars still cannot agree whether the leaper dived from above or sprang up from below.

Which Midwestern state's fair has shown a cow sculpted from butter as a staple attraction since 1911?

Iowa's butter sculptors go well beyond cattle: Norma Lyon, who carved the cow for 45 years, also made butter versions of Elvis Presley and The Last Supper.

Which cattle trail out of Texas is named for a trader of Cherokee and Scottish descent?

Chisholm laid out the route with the scout Black Beaver to supply his trading posts, and he died before the cattle drives reached their peak.

Which invention, patented by Illinois farmer Joseph Glidden in 1874, helped close the open range to roaming cattle?

Barbed wire gave farmers a cheap way to fence out stray cattle, and ranchers lost the open range. Glidden made the barbs for his best design with a coffee mill.

The cowboy word buckaroo is generally thought to be a mangled form of which term for a Mexican cattle herder?

Vaquero is built from vaca, cow, plus an ending that marks a trade. Some cowboys of the American West still call themselves buckaroos.

In the cowboy culture of the American West, what name was given to the crime of stealing cattle?

Rustling was taken so seriously on the frontier that vigilantes sometimes hanged or shot the thieves. The spread of fenced grazing gradually cut it back.

The word cattle once meant property of any kind and shares a Latin root, meaning head, with which financial term?

Capital and cattle both go back to the Latin capitale, property, from caput, head. The legal word chattel is a third member of the family.

Which wooden beam is fitted across the necks of a pair of oxen so that they can pull a load together?

Yoke is also the word for the team itself: a pair of oxen is called a yoke of oxen. Some designs sit behind the horns rather than on the neck.

Which hard fat, rendered from beef or mutton suet, was widely used for cheap candles before better waxes arrived?

Tallow candles stayed the cheaper choice for some time. The poorest households made do with a tallow dip, a reed dunked in the melted fat.

Which enzyme mixture, traditionally taken from the stomach lining of young calves, curdles milk in cheesemaking?

Rennet from calves has become the rarity. Industrial cheesemakers mostly use a cheaper version made by fermentation with engineered microbes.

What name is given to the fine writing surface that medieval scribes made from calfskin rather than paper?

Vellum comes from the Old French vélin, calfskin. Craftspeople still keep the word for calf and call any other animal's skin parchment.

Which sugar in cow's milk can most of the world's adults not fully digest?

Lactose tolerance in adults is the newer trait. It evolved separately in several peoples, probably after they began keeping dairy animals about 10,000 years ago.

What is the term for moving herds each year between lowland winter pastures and high mountain summer grazing?

Transhumance left its mark on the map. Local words for the high summer pastures, such as Alp in German-speaking lands and hafod in Wales, turned into place names.

Which British rock band put nothing but a cow in a pasture on the cover of its 1970 album Atom Heart Mother?

Pink Floyd had never before left both its name and its members' photos off a sleeve, and the band kept the habit through the 1970s.

Which cartoonist filled The Far Side with cows, and baffled readers with his 1982 single panel Cow Tools?

Gary Larson got so much mail about Cow Tools that he issued a press release to say there was nothing to explain.

Which British artist cut a cow and her calf into sections and showed them in glass cases as Mother and Child Divided?

Damien Hirst first showed the piece at the Venice Biennale in 1993 and won the Turner Prize two years later. His other preserved animals include a shark, a sheep and a pig.

Which chocolate brand, created by Suchard in 1901, has a lilac-coloured cow called Lila as its symbol?

Milka's cow wears a bell and has fronted the brand's adverts since 1972. Her name, Lila, is simply German for lilac.

The Laughing Cow mascot began as a First World War army drawing whose name punned on which band of mythical women?

Valkyries became La Wachkyrie when the illustrator Benjamin Rabier drew a mascot for a French army supply unit. He later reworked it for the cheese.

In the picture book Click, Clack, Moo, what do Farmer Brown's cows demand in the letters they type?

Electric blankets, to keep them warm at night: when the farmer refuses, the cows go on strike, and a duck ends up brokering a swap for their typewriter.

On a cattle pedigree the father is listed as the sire, so what is the term for the mother?

Dam is the breeder's word for a mother across farm animals, and it has been in print since at least Edmund Spenser's Faerie Queene of 1590.

What is the term for moving a calf from its mother's milk onto the feed it will eat as an adult?

Weaning comes within a couple of months on dairy farms, while beef calves usually nurse from their mothers for six months or more.

In Greek myth, which king's filthy cattle stables did Heracles clean in a single day by diverting two rivers?

Augeas had promised a tenth of his herd for the job and angrily refused to pay. The labour was then discounted anyway, because the rivers had done the work.

Which dangerous condition, triggered when cattle gorge on lush clover or alfalfa, traps gas in the rumen?

Bloat in its frothy form locks the gas inside a foam, so the animal cannot simply burp it away as it normally would.

Which hybrid animal comes from crossing domestic cattle with the American bison in managed breeding programmes?

Beefalo turn out to be mostly cattle. A genomic study found that the vast majority, even pedigree animals, carry no detectable bison ancestry at all.