CATTLES

Cattle (Bos taurus) are large domesticated cattle that are widely kept as livestock. They are a prominent modern member of the subfamily Bovinae and the most widespread species in the genus Bos. Adult females are called cows and adult males bulls. Young females are called heifers, young males are called oxen or bullocks, and castrated males are called bulls.

Cattle are generally kept for meat, dairy products, and leather. As draft animals, they pull carts and farm implements. In India, cattle are sacred animals in Hinduism and cannot be killed. Small breeds, such as the miniature zebu, are kept as pets.

Taurine cattle are widely distributed in Europe and temperate Asia, the Americas, and Australia. Zebus are found mainly in India and tropical Asia, the Americas, and Australia. Sanga cattle are found mainly in sub-Saharan Africa. These varieties, sometimes classified as separate species or subspecies, are divided into more than 1,000 recognized breeds.

About 10,500 years ago, bulls were domesticated from wild ancestors of the aurochs in central Anatolia, the Levant, and western Iran. An independent domestication event occurred on the Indian subcontinent, giving rise to the zebu. As of 2022, there were more than 940 million heads of cattle in the world. Livestock farming is responsible for about 7% of global greenhouse gas emissions. It was one of the first domesticated animals to have a fully mapped genome.

The word cattle is derived from the Anglo-Norman catel, which in turn derives from medieval “principal sum of money, capital”, which in turn derives from Latin caput “head has been”. Cattle originally meant movable chattel, especially livestock of any kind, as opposed to real estate (land that included wild animals or small free-ranging animals such as dogs that were sold as part of the land). This word is a type of chattel (unit of movable property) and is closely related to capital in the economic sense.[2][1] The word cow is from Anglo-Saxon cū (plural cȳ), from Common Indo-European gʷōus (same as gʷowés) “calf”. Persian: gâv, Sanskrit: go-.[3] In older English sources, such as the King James Version of the Bible, ox often means cattle, as opposed to deer, which are wild animals.

Description

Cows are large artiodactyls, mammals with split hooves, meaning they walk on two toes, a third and a fourth. Like all cattle species, they may have horns that are unbranched and are not shed annually.[4] Coloration varies by breed. Common colors are black, white and red/brown, with some breeds having spots or mixed colors.[5] A bull weighs several hundred kilograms more than a cow of the same breed. For example, British Hereford cattle weigh between 600 and 800 kg (1,300 and 1,800 lb), while bulls weigh between 1,000 and 1,200 kg (2,200 and 2,600 lb). Before 1790, cattle averaged only 160 kg (350 lb) net. Since then, weight has steadily appreciated.[7][8] Cattle breeds vary widely in size. The tallest and heaviest is the Chianina, where an adult bull can measure up to 1.8 m (5 ft 11 in) at the withers and weigh up to 1,280 kg (2,820 lb). The normal life expectancy of domestic cattle is about 25 to 30 years. Cows reach slaughter at about 18 months and dairy cows at five years.

Cows are ruminants, meaning their digestive systems are highly specialized to process plant material such as grasses rich in cellulose, a tough carbohydrate polymer that many animals cannot digest. They do this in symbiosis with microorganisms (bacteria, fungi, and protozoa) that have cellulases, enzymes that break down cellulose into its constituent sugars. Among the many bacteria that play a role in this, we can mention Fibrobacter succinogenes, Ruminococcus flafacins, and Ruminococcus albus. Cellulolytic fungi include several species of Neocallimastix, while protozoa include the ciliates Eudiplodinium maggie and Ostracodinium album. If the animal’s diet changes over time, the composition of this microbiome changes in response.

Cows have a large stomach with four chambers. Rumen, reticulum, omasum, and teat. The rumen is the largest part and contains the most important parts of the microbiome. The grate, the smallest compartment, is known as the “honeycomb.” The omasum’s main function is to absorb water and nutrients from digestible feed. The breast has the same function as the human stomach.

Like most ruminants, cows re-chew their food in the process of ruminating. During feeding, cows swallow food without chewing it. It passes into the rumen for storage. The food is then returned to the mouth, one bite at a time, where the molars chew the teeth, breaking down coarse vegetation into small particles. The cod is then swallowed again and digested by microorganisms in the cow’s stomach.

The gestation period of a cow lasts about nine months. The ratio of male to female calves at birth is about 52:48. [A cow’s chest has two pairs of mammary glands or teats. Farms often use artificial insemination, the artificial deposition of sperm into the female reproductive system. This allows farmers to select bulls for breeding. Oestrus can also be artificially induced to facilitate the process. Copulation lasts a few seconds and involves pelvic thrusts.

Cows seek out secluded areas to calve. Semi-wild Highland heifers calve for the first time at 2 or 3 years of age, and the timing of calving coincides with the improvement in natural feed quality. The average interval between births is 391 days, and mortality from birth in the first year of life is 5%. Beef calves are milked an average of 5 times a day and spend about 46 minutes milking. There is a daily nursing rhythm with peak hours around 6:00 am, 11:30 am and 7:00 pm. Under normal conditions, calves remain with their mothers until weaning, which is at 8 to 11 months of age. Calves and males are equally dependent on their mother during the first months of life.

Cattle have a variety of cognitive abilities. They can memorize the location of various food sources and retain memories for at least 48 days. Young cattle learn faster than adults, and calves can learn to distinguish between familiar and unfamiliar animals and between humans, using faces and other cues. Calves prefer the vocalizations of their own mother to those of an unfamiliar cow. Vocalizations provide information about the caller’s age, sex, dominance status, and reproductive status, and can indicate estrus in cows and competitive displays in bulls. Cows can sort pictures into familiar and unfamiliar individuals. Cloned calves from the same donor form subgroups, suggesting that discrimination by family members underlies grouping behavior. Cattle use visual/brain lateralization when scanning novel and familiar stimuli. They prefer novel stimuli with the left eye (with the right brain hemisphere), but the right eye for familiar stimuli. Individual bows have also been observed to display various personality traits, such as bravery and sociability.

Senses

Sight is the dominant sense; cattle receive almost half of their information visually. As predators, cattle have evolved to hunt predators almost anywhere by having their eyes located on the sides of their heads rather than in front. This gives them a 330° field of view, but limits binocular vision (and therefore stereopsis) to about 30° to 50° compared to humans’ 140°. They are dichromats, like most mammals. They avoid bitter-tasting foods, choosing sweet items to provide energy. Their sensitivity to acid-tasting foods helps maintain optimal ruminal pH. They seek out salty foods based on taste and smell to maintain electrolyte balance. Their hearing is better than horses, but worse than goats at locating sounds, and much worse than dogs and humans. They can distinguish between live and recorded human speech. Smell is likely to play an important role in their social life in terms of social and reproductive status. Animals can recognise when other animals are stressed by detecting alarming substances in their urine. Farm animals can be trained to recognise individuals of the same species based on smell alone.

Cattle live in a dominance hierarchy. This is maintained in several ways. Cattle often engage in mock fights where they test each other’s strength in a non-aggressive way. Licking is primarily performed by subordinates and received by dominant animals. Mounting is a playful behavior shown by calves of both sexes and by bulls and sometimes by cows in estrus,^[42] however, this is not a dominance related behavior as has been found in other species.^[19] Dominance-associated aggressiveness does not correlate with rank position, but is closely related to rank distance between individuals.^[19] The horns of cattle are honest signals used in mate selection. Horned cattle attempt to keep greater distances between themselves and have fewer physical interactions than hornless cattle, resulting in more stable social relationships.^[43] In calves, agonistic behavior becomes less frequent as space allowance increases, but not as group size changes, whereas in adults, the number of agonistic encounters increases with group size.^[44]

Dominance relationships in semi-wild highland cattle are very firm, with few overt aggressive conflicts: most disputes are settled by agonistic (non-aggressive, competitive) behaviors with no physical contact between opponents, reducing the risk of injury. Dominance status depends on age and sex, with older animals usually dominant to young ones and males dominant to females. Young bulls gain superior dominance status over adult cows when they reach about 2 years of age.^[19]

Cattle eat mixed diets, but prefer to eat approximately 70% clover and 30% grass. This preference has a diurnal pattern, with a stronger preference for clover in the morning, and the proportion of grass increasing towards the evening.^[45] When grazing, cattle vary several aspects of their bite, i.e. tongue and jaw movements, depending on characteristics of the plant they are eating. Bite area decreases with the density of the plants but increases with their height. Bite area is determined by the sweep of the tongue; in one study observing 750-kilogram (1,650 lb) steers, bite area reached a maximum of approximately 170 cm² (30 sq in). Bite depth increases with the height of the plants. By adjusting their behavior, cattle obtain heavier bites in swards that are tall and sparse compared with short, dense swards of equal mass/area.^[46] Cattle adjust other aspects of their grazing behavior in relation to the available food; foraging velocity decreases and intake rate increases in areas of abundant palatable forage.^[47] Cattle avoid grazing areas contaminated by the faeces of other cattle more strongly than they avoid areas contaminated by sheep,^[48] but they do not avoid pasture contaminated by rabbits.^[49]

In cattle, temperament or behavioral disposition can affect productivity, overall health, and reproduction.^[51] Five underlying categories of temperament traits have been proposed: shyness–boldness, exploration–avoidance, activity, aggressiveness, and sociability.^[52] There are many indicators of emotion in cattle. Holstein–Friesian heifers that had made clear improvements in a learning experiment had higher heart rates, indicating an emotional reaction to their own learning.^[53] After separation from their mothers, Holstein calves react, indicating low mood.^[54] Similarly, after hot-iron dehorning, calves react to the post-operative pain.^[55] The position of the ears has been used as an indicator of emotional state.^[27] Cattle can tell when other cattle are stressed by the chemicals in their urine.^[41] Cattle are gregarious, and even short-term isolation causes psychological stress. When heifers are isolated, vocalizations, heart rate and plasma cortisol all increase. When visual contact is re-instated, vocalizations rapidly decline; heart rate decreases more rapidly if the returning cattle are familiar to the previously isolated individual.^[56] Mirrors have been used to reduce stress in isolated cattle.^[57]

The average sleep time of a domestic cow is about 4 hours a day.^[58] Cattle do have a stay apparatus,^[59] but do not sleep standing up;^[60] they lie down to sleep deeply.^[61]

Genetics

In 2009, the National Institutes of Health and the US Department of Agriculture reported having mapped the bovine genome.^[63] Cattle have some 22,000 genes, of which 80% are shared with humans; they have about 1000 genes that they share with dogs and rodents, but not with humans. Using this bovine “HapMap”, researchers can track the differences between breeds that affect meat and milk yields.^[64] Early research focused on Hereford genetic sequences; a wider study mapped a further 4.2% of the cattle genome.^[62]

Behavioral traits of cattle can be as heritable as some production traits, and often, the two can be related.^[65] The heritability of temperament (response to isolation during handling) has been calculated as 0.36 and 0.46 for habituation to handling.^[66] Rangeland assessments show that the heritability of aggressiveness in cattle is around 0.36.^[67]

Quantitative trait loci have been found for a range of production and behavioral characteristics for both dairy and beef cattle.^[6

Taxonomy

Cattle were originally identified as three distinct species: Bos taurus cattle, European or taurus cattle (including similar types from Africa and Asia); Bos indicus, indicino or “zebu”; and the extinct Bos primigenius, the aurochs. Aurochs are the ancestors of both zebu and bull fighting cattle. They were later reclassified into a single species, Bos taurus, with subspecies including aurochs (B. t. primigenius), zebu (B. t. indicus) and bull cattle (B. t. taurus). However, this taxonomy is controversial and institutions such as the Mammal Society of America consider these taxa to be separate species.

Complicating matters is the ability of cattle to interbreed with other closely related species. There are single individuals and even hybrid breeds not only between taurus and zebu cattle (such as sanga cattle (Bos taurus africanus x Bos indicus), but also between one or both of them and some other members of the genus Bos: yak ( dzo or yattle [77 ]), banteng and gaur can occur even among bullfighting cattle and any species of bison, so some authors consider them also part of the genus Bos.[78] Studies of the Lulu dwarf breed, the only breed of cattle in Nepal, have shown that it is a bullfighting , a mix of zebu and yak.
Aurochs were originally found throughout Europe, North Africa and much of Asia. In historical times, its range was limited to Europe, and the last known individual died in Poland, Mazovia, around 1627. [80] Breeders attempted to recreate the appearance of the aurochs by crossing traditional types of domestic cattle to create the Heck breed.

In Africa there is a group of cattle adapted for bullfighting; They are either an independent domestication event or arose from crossing taurines domesticated elsewhere with native taurines, but are genetically distinct; some authors refer to them as a separate subspecies of Bos taurus africanus. The only remaining pure African bullfighting breeds are the N’Dama, Kuri and some West African shorthorn breeds.

Wild cattle are those that have been allowed to run free.[85] Populations are found in many parts of the world[86],87 and sometimes on small islands[88]. Some, such as Amsterdam Island cattle, Chillingham cattle[89] and wild Aleutian cattle, have become distinctive enough to be described as breeds.