Interesting facts about the cow. Cows are interesting facts. Features of breeds of different groups

The cow is probably the most useful farm animal, not in vain peasant farms cows were affectionately called "mother-nurse", because if there are cows on the farm, then there will be meat and milk, cottage cheese, sour cream, cheese at home. Despite the fact that cows seem to be simple and ordinary animals, in fact, they do not cease to amaze people to this day.

Sacred animals

According to some religious beliefs (Hinduism, Jainism, Zoroastrianism), the cow is considered a sacred animal. For example, in Hinduism, eating and slaughtering cows is taboo, and in some states, killing cows faces a prison sentence. Moreover, everywhere in India, cows are respected, they have the right to walk freely on the city streets, and all traffic participants must let them pass.

In Zoroastrianism, the soul of a cow is even called "the soul of the earth." Animal urine is considered sacred and healing and is widely used as a medicine.

Origin of cows

The ancestor of cows is an ancient animal tour. Tours were larger than today's bulls - their mass reached 850 kg, and the height at the withers 180 cmlong and sharp horns towered on the head. They usually lived in the steppe, and in the winter they united in large herds and went into the forest. They lived in North Africa, Asia Minor and the Caucasus, Central Europe.

Gradually, these animals were exterminated, especially intensively they began to disappear during deforestation in the 9-11th century. In 1599, only about 20 individuals lived near Warsaw, and in 1627 the last animal died. There are currently active efforts in Europe to recreate the tours.

The vision of a cow and a person is radically different, despite the fact that it has a similar structure. Cows see colors, but they are very weak, not clear, therefore bulls' aggression towards red is fiction.

The eye of a cow is designed so that it sees better at night than during the day, besides, it distinguishes close objects worse than those that are far away.

The sense of smell in these animals is poorly developed, but they define the taste of food well, since they have about 25 thousand taste buds... The cow can distinguish sweet, sour, salty and bitter tastes, she will not eat bitter food, she will reluctantly eat salty food, but she will eat sweet and sour food with pleasure.

Cows do not have a long memory, however, they very quickly remember a person who is constantly looked after and fully trusted. The cow's sleep is also unusual - the animal sleeps in fits and starts, and deep sleep lasts no more than five minutes.

Any person can be identified by a fingerprint, cows also have such individual prints, but not fingers, but ... the nose - the skin of the nasolabial mirror is cut with lines that fold into patterns, each of the cows is unique.

"Psychology" of cows

Cows are very friendly animals, being in a herd, they try to find friends for themselves, and express friendship by licking each other.

According to the latest research, these mammals are considered intelligent animals, and they are approximately on a par with dogs. So, for example, if one animal receives an electric shock from a fence located on the field, then the rest of the animals will pay attention to this and will avoid contact with the fence.

Fun facts

Cows do not have a long life expectancy, unfortunately, on average, they live about twenty years, and bulls even less - 15-17. Although there are long-lived animals, a case has been documented when the "cow" lived 35 years.

The taste of milk depends on what kind of food the animal eats, so if a cow has eaten some bitter grass, then the milk will have a bitter taste. And in some countries, the animal's diet includes beer, wine and even ... sake. So, in Japan, to obtain the most expensive meat in the world - marbled beef - alcoholic beverages of the highest quality are added to the feed for cows, it is believed that they calm the animal, and in the future their meat acquires a unique taste.

Cows with holes in their sides can be seen on farms in the United States and Western Europe. Despite the fact that it looks very impartial, such a hole helps to control the digestion of the animal and the concentration of bacteria in the stomach, moreover, in the case of increased gas production, opening the valve to the animal can save the life.

Cow records

Some of the cows and bulls are included in the Guinness Book of Records due to their unusual achievements.

The average weight of a cow, depending on the breed, is 380 -500 kg, in bulls the mass is 700-900 kg, the record holder in this category is a cow Mount Katadinwho was able to reach mass 2270 kg at height at the withers 188 cm, this cow died in 1923 in a farm fire. No bull could break this record, the maximum recorded record for a bull's mass is 1934 kgand this record has remained unattainable since 1847.

There are also records for milk yields. If, on average, 6000-7000 liters of milk per year are fed from one cow, and the figure of 8-12 thousand is considered excellent, then against the background of these figures, the milk yield of the record holders seems fabulous: Cow Ubre Blanca from Cuba was able to give 41673 liters of milk, the cow from the USA Juliana was closest to her - her record - 31,714 liters per year.

Cow hybrids

Modern zoologists and veterinarians continue to conduct numerous genetic experiments with cows. The results of such experiments were five hybrids of a cow with other animals:

Haynak is a cow and a yak.
Bison - bison and cow.
Beefalo is a cow and American bison.
The dwarf lulu is a hybrid of a cow, a zebu and a yak.
Zobo is a hybrid of a zebu and a yak.

According to research by scientists, humans and cows have numerous similarities: a four-chambered heart; a brain consisting of five divisions; the presence of nuclei in erythrocytes; nine month pregnancy; in addition, human and cow DNA are 89% similar.

The cow has been playing a significant role in human life for many centuries. The people respectfully call her the nurse. Keeping a cow on the farm means always having meat, dairy, butter and sour cream on the table. Breeders have developed domestic breeds of cows so that this farm animal brings maximum benefit people.

From the history of domestication

This is one of the oldest tamed artiodactyls: they were tamed about 9 thousand years ago - the first were goats, pigs, sheep. First of all, people needed milking cows, since hunting for other animals gave meat, and not all animals can drink milk for humans.

The most ancient traces testifying to the occupation of cattle were found on the territory of the states of the Middle East - in Syria, Libya, Israel, and Iraq. The progenitor of the domestic cow is a wild bull (scientifically called a tour).

Features of breeds of different groups

There are three groups: dairy, meat and meat and dairy. For example, in Russian farms 36 breeds of dairy and dairy-meat and 12 beef breeds are grown. All three groups have their own characteristics.

In dairy breeds, the skeleton is narrow, the skin is thin, voluminous udder with developed lobes. They can be kept both in pasture grazing and in stalls. The most widespread is the Kholmogory breed. Also bred Yaroslavl, Tagil, brown Latvian and red steppe.

In meat, the bone is wide, powerful neck, muscles are well developed. The udder is voluminous, but its shares are not expressed. These cows develop physically faster, that is, they gain weight quickly.

Animals of the Hereford and Aberdeen Angus breeds are popular. IN different countries they also keep - charolais, limousine, santa gertrude, kian, Kazakh white-headed, Galloway.

Meat and dairy products have excellent health, they are hardy, and it is beneficial to keep them because of their versatility. The combined group includes red Tambov and red Gorbatov, Shorthorn, Bestuzhev, Swiss, Simmental, Kurgan and Kostroma.

Color and physical data

The color of the cow depends on the specific breed of cow. In the photo of cows of different breeds, you can admire how varied and beautiful the colors are.

Cow weight also varies by breed. For example, recently dwarf cows have been popular - their weight is no higher than 150-300 kg, and the smallest ones are only 90 kg. The growth of dwarf cows at the withers is 80-100 cm.

Well, in agricultural breeds, body weight starts from 450 kg and reaches, on average, 750 kg, height at the withers is 1.2-1.5 m.

Note!

The average life span of a cow is 20 years.

Household conditions

A villager can easily keep up to five cows. The main thing is that there are pastures and a reservoir near the home mini-farm - for walking the livestock you need space, water and food, all this is in nature.

Despite the fact that in the summer the cows can feed themselves, it is recommended to feed dairy cows with silage in the summer. This will increase milk yield and increase the fat content of the milk.

Care

The barn must be clean, otherwise the cattle may get sick. To do this, the floor must be lined with a bedding made of straw, and as it gets dirty, completely change it to a clean one.

Domestic farm animals need vaccinations against various diseases from time to time.

Note!

The cow must be milked on time, otherwise she may develop mastitis and stop milking.

General principles of feeding and drinking

If in the summer the cow is on pasture grazing, she should be given feed twice a day - in the mornings and evenings, and in winter and with stall keeping - three to four times.

Watering is very important for the cow as 60% of her body is water. The water temperature in the drinking bowl for an adult animal should be at least 10-12 ° C. The cow should drink 12 to 21 times a day.

Breeding

A cow well prepared for calving will bring healthy offspring. In the last two months of pregnancy, which lasts like a human pregnancy - 9 months (or about 285 days), juicy grass and silage are excluded from food, and they are fed with clean dry hay.

During this time, milking is prohibited (then the daily milk yield after calving will be higher). In winter, it is necessary to ensure that the animal does not slip, since this is what in most cases leads to the loss of the fetus.

Slaughter

In most countries, slaughter of large cattle not a qualified specialist, but a private trader. Before the procedure, the animal should be examined by a veterinarian, and after that - take meat samples.

Breeding of dwarf cows is popular in India - there are about 30 species of them. Their growth is no higher than 1 m.And in Scotland, the favorite dwarf beef breed - Highland: these animals have long wavy hair and very long horns, the most varied color - spotted, black, yellow, red or bun.

Belgian breeders have bred a blue meat breed - the weight of an individual can reach up to 1 ton.

And there are aboriginal breeds - Yakut, Ukrainian gray steppe, Buryat and Siberian, created by nature itself, without the participation of people.

Photos of cows

1. In the year of the bull, such celebrities were born as Maya Plisetskaya, Joseph Kobzon, Alla Pugacheva, Mikhail Boyarsky, Natasha Koroleva, Nikolai Valuev, Sergey Bezrukov and many others.

2. The ancient Slavs - a symbol of fertility, abundance and prosperity, and - a symbol of power and wealth.

3. In India, cows are still considered sacred animals.

4. There is a bull, or a cow in the zodiac circle - this is the Taurus zodiac sign.

5. The 43rd President of the United States, George W. Bush, has a cow, Ophelia.
6. Humans and cows have been together for about 8 thousand years.

7. In terms of numbers, cows rank second after humans among mammals - in total, almost 1.5 billion cows graze on Earth. IN Latin America there are 9 cows per 10 people, in Australia there are 40% more cows than people.

8. If you put all of humanity on one side of the scale, and drive all the cows and bulls on the second, the total weight of the "horned" ones will three times exceed the weight of people.

9. Bulls and cows are bred for milk, meat, hides, and animal excrement is used as fertilizer.

10. Cow's milk is the most consumed type of milk - its annual production exceeds 400 million tons.

11. During its life, a cow gives about 200 thousand glasses of milk. A herd of 60 cows produces a ton of milk per day.

12. The taste of milk and its nutritional value largely depend on what the animal ate. If a cow's milk, for example, tastes bitter, then she ate wormwood or other bitter grass.

13. 250 ml of milk contains 300 mg of calcium. That's as much as 7 sardines (including bones), 2.5 cups raw broccoli, 3 cups peanuts, or 4 cups black beans.

14. Chinese scientists have bred a genetically modified cow, whose milk contains antibodies that can fight cancer.

15. To feed one two-year-old cow requires 3.5 tons of soybeans and grain, 600 liters of water. In return, a person receives 300 kg of meat.

16. Cows are one of the kindest animals. They never conflict with each other, and even a new cow in the herd quickly makes friends. They express their friendship by licking. Therefore, if a cow licked you, then you can consider her as your friend.

17. As you know, a cow is a ruminant and they became so in the process of evolution. The fact is that they are not able to run fast, and they also lack sharp fangs and claws. They just needed a vital way to avoid going without food for a long time. And so it happened that they do not chew food, but swallow it right away. And when the cow is in a calm environment for her, they begin to chew food. By the way, a cow's jaw makes up to 100 movements in one minute.

18. The cow also has a unique pattern similar to a human fingerprint. This pattern is located on the nose and does not exist alike. And in one of the US states, farmers use this pattern in order to find stolen cows.

19. Scientists, observing herds of cows, made the following conclusion: cows are very observant. They are able to learn from the mistakes that other cows make. The following experiment was carried out: a herd of cows was surrounded by a fence, which shocked when touched. One cow approached this fence and, naturally, was electrocuted. This was noticed by the whole herd, and almost none of them approached the ill-fated fence anymore.

20. Mount Katadin is the largest cow in the entire world. Its weight was 2270 kilograms, the waist circumference was about 4 meters, and at the withers the diameter was 1 meter 88 centimeters.

21. Cows live up to 20 years on average. There was a case when a cow lived 35 years. But, for example, bulls live less - somewhere 15 - 20 years.

22. When zoologists conducted research on the mooing of cows, it turned out that cows emit 11 different intonations.

23. Animals such as bulls and cows do not distinguish colors at all. But on the bullfight, red fabric is only to attract the attention of the audience. Bulls are simply very annoyed when there is rapid movement in front of them.

1. If you put the whole of humanity on one side of the scale, and drive all the cows and bulls on the second, the total weight of the "horned" ones will three times exceed the weight of people.

2. People and cows have been together for about 8 thousand years

3. The 43rd US President George W. Bush has a cow, Ophelia.

4. The heaviest cow in the world - Mount Katadin, a Holstein-Durham hybrid - reached a weight of 2270 kg (1906-1910). According to the Guinness Book of Records, she was 1.88 m at the withers and 3.96 m in girth.

5. The world's most expensive meat is marbled beef from Japanese Wagiu cows. For centuries, these cows were bred only in Japan, near the city of Kobe, treated with great respect, fed only the best herbs, rubbed sake daily and watered them with beer.

6. The UN considered that cows cause more damage to the Earth's ecology than cars or airplanes: cows are directly or indirectly associated with the emission of 18% of all greenhouse gases in the world. Cow gases and dung alone are responsible for more than a third of the greenhouse gas that enters the atmosphere - methane, which heats the Earth 20 times faster than carbon dioxide.

7. The bull became a ruminant in the process of evolution. Bulls and cows could not run too fast, they did not have fangs or claws, so they had a special way of eating: quickly grab, swallow without chewing, run away, and then chew afterwards - in a calm atmosphere.

8. The bull is color blind and does not distinguish between colors, and in the bullfight he rushes to the bullfighter's rag not because it is red.

10. Earlier in Europe, cows, like many other animals, were equally responsible before the law with humans. The processes were conducted in strict compliance with all forms of legal proceedings and the requirements of the law. The animals were even excommunicated from the church, which was considered a very heavy punishment.

11. Cows can learn from each other: this sign of intelligence is at the level of the dog and slightly above the level of the cat. According to information provided by the US Humanitarian Society, if one cow receives an electric shock from the fence, the rest will pay attention to it and will avoid contact with the fence. Only a small percentage of the herd will repeat the mistake of the first cow.

12. Cows can cry.

13. Cows have their close friends, tenderness for whom is expressed in affectionate licking of each other.

14. Every minute the jaws of a cow make 30 to 90 movements.

15. The dung of the hundreds of millions of cows in the United States can provide approximately 100 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity, enough to power millions of homes.

16. Cows sense the earth's magnetic field and position their body along its lines of force during feeding and rest.

17. For many peoples, long before the appearance of money, payments were calculated in cows.

18. On the skin of the nasolabial mirror, cows have lines similar to patterns on the palms of a person. Like our fingerprints, they are strictly individual for each individual. Indiana herders in the United States use the nasal print method to track down stolen cows.

19. During its life, a cow gives about 200 thousand glasses of milk. A herd of 60 cows produces a ton of milk per day.

20. The sense of smell in cows is less developed than in other animals. Nevertheless, the cow carefully sniffs the ground before starting to eat grass in the pasture. If fertilizers have recently been scattered on the site, she refuses to graze.

What would the world be without cows, or rather, what would have happened if people had not tamed them back in time immemorial? A number of industries have largely depended on these animals for many centuries. Cows supply milk, meat and hides, and in some cases everything else is used, including manure, horns and hooves. Perhaps we should be grateful to them for the contribution they made to the development of our civilization.

Cow facts

Pregnancy lasts for them as long as for humans, plus or minus a few weeks.
Since the late 1980s, bovine embryos have sometimes been cloned to produce suitable individuals.
Nobody knows exactly when cows were domesticated. It is known for certain that at least 6,000 years ago in Ancient Egypt they were already tamed, and on the territory of modern Turkey, archaeologists have found fossil remains of a domestic cow, which are more than 10,000 years old ().
Some diseases that cows are prone to can be transmitted to humans and vice versa.
There are hornless types of cows in the world.
In total, about 1.3 billion cows now live on Earth.
The total weight of all these animals is about 3 times the total weight of all mankind.
The cow's eyes give them an excellent view, thanks to which it is very difficult for a predator to sneak up on this artiodactyl.
In India, the cow is revered as a sacred animal. But this almost does not apply to the Indian state of Goa, which is popular among tourists, since the bulk of its population is made up of Christians, not Hindus ().
About 15-18% of all greenhouse gases are emitted into the Earth's atmosphere from cows. Methane is actively formed in their stomachs, which contributes to the greenhouse effect.
In recent decades, breeding of dwarf cows has become popular in some countries. However, they still reach the waist for an adult man in height at the withers.
The largest cow in the world, entered in the Guinness Book of Records, lived at the beginning of the 20th century. Her weight only slightly fell short of 2.3 tons, and her height at the withers reached 188 centimeters.
Argentina occupies the first place in the world in the production of beef, and the largest herds, numbering millions of cows, graze in the vastness of this particular country ().
These animals are one of the few on Earth that remember people by their faces, and not by smells and other distinctive features.
They easily remember their name and obediently respond to it.
To obtain 1 ton of milk, a herd of about 50-60 dairy cows is needed daily.

The most expensive beef in the world is the meat of Wagiu cows, which have been bred only in Japan for centuries.
Like humans, these cloven-hoofed animals can cry.
Before money in one form or another came into use almost all over the world, cows were often used as a measure of value. The larger a person had a herd, the richer he was. For some peoples, wealth was similarly measured in camels, rams and horses ().
Cows cannot distinguish colors, so the saying about bulls and their aggressiveness at the sight of red has nothing to do with reality.
In medieval Europe, the court sometimes judged cows in the same way as humans. The animal could be convicted of some kind of crime, for example, assault.
IN modern world killing a cow is sometimes equated with killing a person. Such a law applies, for example, on the island of Cuba.
These cloven-hoofed animals know how to feel the Earth's magnetic field, and when resting, they are always located along its lines, if they have such an opportunity.
With their hum with 11 different intonations, they communicate with each other.
The number of cows in South America is almost equal to the population of the entire continent. According to statistics, there are 9 cows for 10 people ().
If the cow licks you with her tongue, then she has sympathy for you.
A cow nose print is as unique as human fingerprints.
On average, one dairy cow gives about 200 thousand standard glasses of milk during her life.
Cows live about a quarter longer than bulls - about 20 years versus 15.
In terms of population size among all mammals, cows occupy the second place on Earth, second only to humans.

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