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

The cow is probably the most useful farm animal, for good reason. 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, and cheese at home. Despite the fact that cows seem to be simple and ordinary animals, in fact, they never cease to amaze people so far.

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 is punishable by imprisonment. Moreover, everywhere in India, cows are respected, they have the right to freely roam the city streets, and all participants in the movement must let them pass.

In Zoroastrianism, the soul of a cow is even called the "soul of the earth." The urine of the animal 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 exceeded the current bulls in size - their mass reached 850 kg, and the height at the withers 180 cm, long and sharp horns towered on the head. They usually lived in the steppe, and for 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, they began to disappear especially intensively during deforestation in the 9th-11th centuries. In 1599, only about 20 individuals lived near Warsaw, and in 1627 the last animal died. There is currently an active effort in Europe to recreate the tours.

The vision of a cow and a person is fundamentally different, despite the fact that it has a similar structure. Cows see colors, but they distinguish them very weakly, not clearly, so the aggression of bulls on red is an invention.

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

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

Cows do not have a long memory, but they very quickly remember a person who constantly looks after them and trusts him completely. Sleep is also unusual for a cow - the animal sleeps in fits and starts, and a sound 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 ... a nose - the skin of the nasolabial mirror is indented with lines that form 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 recent studies, these mammals are considered intelligent animals, and they are approximately on the same level as dogs. So, for example, if one animal receives an electric shock from a fence located on a field, then the rest of the animals will pay attention to this and will avoid contact with the fence.

funny 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 animal centenarians, a case has been documented when the “burenka” lived 35 years.

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

On farms in the US and Western Europe, you can see cows with holes in their sides. Despite the fact that it looks very impartial, such a hole helps to control the animal's digestion and the concentration of bacteria in the stomach, in addition, in case of increased gas formation, opening the valve to the animal can save a life.

cow records

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

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 Katahdin, which was able to reach the mass 2270 kg with height at the withers 188 cm, this cow died in 1923 during a fire on a farm. Not a single bull could break this record, the maximum recorded bull mass record is 1934 kg, and this record remains unattainable since 1847.

There are also records for milk yields. If, on average, 6,000-7,000 liters of milk per year are milked from one cow, and an indicator of 8-12 thousand is considered excellent, then against the background of these figures, the record holders' milk yields seem fabulous: Ubre Blanca from Cuba was able to give in a year 41673 liters of milk, the cow from the USA Juliana was the closest to her - her record is 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:

Khainak - cow and yak.
Zubron - a bison and a cow.
Beefalo is a cow and an American bison.
The dwarf lulu is a hybrid of a cow, zebu and yak.
Zobo is a hybrid of a zebu and a yak.

According to the research of scientists, a man and a cow have numerous similarities: a four-chambered heart; the brain, consisting of five departments; the presence of nuclei in erythrocytes; nine months pregnant; besides this, human and cow DNA are similar by 89%.

The cow has played a significant role in human life for many centuries. In the people, she is respectfully called the nurse. Keeping a cow on the farm means always having meat, dairy, butter and sour cream on the table. Breeders bred domestic breeds of cows so that this farm animal would bring 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 a person.

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

Features of breeds of different groups

There are three groups: dairy, meat and meat-and-milk. For example, in Russian farms 36 dairy and milk-meat breeds and 12 meat 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 on pasture pasture and in stalls. The most common Kholmogory breed. Yaroslavl, Tagil, brown Latvian and red steppe are also bred.

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

Animals of Hereford and Aberdeen-Angus breeds are popular. AT different countries they also keep - Charolais, Limousin, Santa Gertrude, Kian, Kazakh white-headed, Galloway.

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

Coloration and physical data

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

The body weight of a cow also depends on the breed. For example, recently dwarf cows have been popular - their weight is not higher than 150-300 kg, and the smallest - 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, up to 750 kg, growth at the withers is 1.2-1.5 m.

Note!

The life expectancy of a cow is, on average, 20 years.

Conditions in the household

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 - cattle walking requires space, water and food, all this is in nature.

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

Care

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

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

Note!

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

About the general principles of feeding and watering

If in the summer the cow is on a pasture pasture, she needs to be given food twice a day - in the mornings and evenings, and in winter and when she is kept in a stall - three to four times.

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

Breeding

Properly prepared for calving, a cow 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 not allowed (then daily milk yields after calving will be higher). In winter, care must be taken to ensure that the animal does not slip, since this is what in most cases leads to the loss of the fetus.

slaughter

Most countries prohibit the slaughter of large cattle not a qualified specialist, but a private trader. Before the procedure, the animal must be examined by a veterinarian, and after that, meat samples should be taken.

In India, breeding of dwarf cows is popular - there are about 30 species of them. Their growth is not higher than 1 m. And in Scotland, the favorite dwarf meat breed- Highland: these animals have long wavy hair and very long horns, the color is the most diverse - spotted, black, yellow, red or tan.

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

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

Photos of cows

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

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. A bull or a cow is also in the zodiac circle - this is the zodiac sign Taurus.

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

7. In terms of numbers, cows occupy the second place after humans among mammals - in total, almost 1.5 billion cows graze on Earth. AT 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 scale, and drive all the cows and bulls on the second, the total weight of the “horned” will be three times 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 her 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 has eaten. If a cow's milk, for example, tastes bitter, then she ate wormwood or another bitter herb.

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

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

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

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

17. As you know, a cow is a ruminant animal and they have become 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 simply needed some way to avoid being without food for a long time. And so it happened that they do not chew food, but swallow it immediately. And when the cow is in a calm environment for her, they begin to chew food. By the way, in one minute the jaw of a cow makes up to 100 movements.

18. The cow also has a unique pattern similar to a human fingerprint. This pattern is located on the nose and the same does not exist. And in one of the US states, farmers use such a 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 other cows make. The following experiment was carried out: they fenced a herd of cows with a fence, which, when touched, was shocked. One cow approached this fence and, of course, she was shocked. This was noticed by the whole herd, and practically none of them approached the ill-fated fence again.

20. Mount Katahdin is the largest cow in the world. Her weight was 2270 kilograms, the waist 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 were cases when a cow lived for 35 years. But, for example, bulls live less - somewhere around 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, the red cloth is only to attract the attention of the audience. Bulls just get really irritated when there's a fast move in front of them.

1. If you put all of humanity on one scale, and drive all the cows and bulls on the second, the total weight of the “horned” will be three times the weight of people.

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

3. The 43rd President of the United States, 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 most expensive meat in the world is marbled beef from Japanese Wagyu cows. For centuries, these cows were bred only in Japan, near the city of Kobe, they were treated very respectfully, fed only the best herbs, rubbed daily with sake and watered with beer.

6. The UN considered that cows cause more damage to the Earth's ecology than cars or planes: cows are directly or indirectly associated with the release of 18% of all greenhouse gases in the world. Cow gases and manure alone are responsible for more than a third of the greenhouse gas released into 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 food: quickly grab, swallow without chewing, run away, and chew later - in a calm environment.

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

10. Previously in Europe, cows, like many other animals, were equally responsible before the law as people. The trials were conducted with the strictest observance of all forms of legal proceedings and the requirements of the law. Animals were even excommunicated from the church, which was considered a very severe punishment.

11. Cows can learn from each other: this sign of intelligence is at the level of a dog and a little higher than a 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 this 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 which is expressed in affectionate licking each other.

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

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

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

17. For many peoples, long before the advent 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 ranchers in the US are using nose prints to track down stolen cows.

19. During her 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. However, before starting to eat grass in the pasture, the cow carefully sniffs the ground. If fertilizers have recently been scattered on the site, she refuses to graze.

What would the world be like without cows, or rather, what would have happened if people had not tamed them since time immemorial? A number of industries have largely depended on these animals for many centuries. Cows provide milk, meat, 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.

Facts about cows

Their pregnancy lasts as long as a human, plus or minus a few weeks.
Since the late 1980s, cow 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 in the territory of modern Turkey, archaeologists found the fossil remains of a domestic cow, which are more than 10,000 years old ().
Some diseases that cows are susceptible to can be transmitted to humans, and vice versa.
There are also 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 mass of all mankind.
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, popular with tourists, since the bulk of its population are Christians, not Hindus ().
About 15-18% of all greenhouse gases are emitted into the Earth's atmosphere due to 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 of an adult man in terms of height at the withers.
The world's largest cow, listed 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 beef production, 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 distinguishing features.
They easily remember their name and obediently respond to it.
To obtain 1 ton of milk daily, a herd of approximately 50-60 dairy cows is needed.

The most expensive beef in the world is wagyu cows, which have been bred only in Japan for centuries.
Like humans, these artiodactyls can cry.
Before money in one form or another came into use almost all over the world, cows often acted as a measure of value. The larger a man 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. An animal could be convicted of some crime, such as assault.
AT modern world killing a cow is sometimes equated with killing a human. Such a law operates, for example, on the island of Cuba.
These artiodactyls are able to feel the Earth's magnetic field, and when resting, they always settle down along its lines, if they have such an opportunity.
With their lowing 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. For 10 people, there are, according to statistics, 9 cows ().
If a cow licks you with her tongue, it means she likes you.
A cow's nose print is as unique as human fingerprints.
On average, one dairy cow produces about 200,000 standard glasses of milk during a lifetime.
Life expectancy in cows is about a quarter longer than in bulls - about 20 years versus 15.
In terms of population among all mammals, cows occupy the second place on Earth, second only to humans.

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