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Archive 1Archive 2Archive 3Archive 4Archive 5

Cattle Contribute to Global Warming

http://www.tierramerica.net/2000/1126/acent.html http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2003/08/14/1060588524091.html http://www.ciesin.columbia.edu/TG/AG/liverear.html Cows produce a lot of ethane, which should be mentioned. --Mr. Orange 62.168.125.219 12:05, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

yeah this accounts for 5% of Australia's total greenhouse gas emissions according to the Australian Greenhouse Office! Pugsworth 03:02, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

Wait, why is it, then, that if cows have been around for a while, only now do they cause global warming? Arius Maximus 19:52, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

Global warming didn't start yesterday. We've been burning oil for over a century and we've been burning coal before that and wood before that. It is a question of (a) contributions have increased recently as the human population grows and as more societies get increasingly industrialized and (b) the accumulation of effects over time. There may also be something of a positive feedback mechanism. I.e., as temperatures heat up, snow and ice melts, and without that white stuff there may be less heat reflected away, etc. Johntex\talk 20:22, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

This is one of those things that simply do not make sense. Did you know that most of the world's greenhouse gases are produced by slaughterhouses? And yet we as americans ironically prefer to blame our cows. Seriously, if we just let our cattle roam and not purposely breed them by the millions, they would benefit the world much more than our senseless slaughtering simply by existing. Mooski Magnus 02:18, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

It is absolutely a complete Canard to assert that cattle contribute to Greenhouse Gas increases by emitting hydrocarbon gases in the digestive process. Cattle obtain the carbon that they emit from vegetation; vegetation obtains this carbon from the air by the process of photosynthesis. Thus this an example of *recycling* carbon obtained from the air. This is 8th grade Science.

In order for cattle to contribute to Greenhouse gases, the carbon they emit would have to come from some other source. The most valid part of any assertion you might see in this regard is the use of fossil fuels to conduct farming for the production of cattle feed.

Carlw4514 18:00, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

The methane comes from bacteria in the cow's gut. -- Anon —Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.42.120.130 (talk) 23:22, 1 October 2009 (UTC)

But isn't it the case that cows produce methane, and methane is many times more potent as a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide? If the vegetation was allowed to die and decompose naturally instead of being eaten by cows, then the aerobic fungi and microbes that digest it would release carbon dioxide back into the air, not methane, and thus preserve the normal carbon cycle. When cows eat grass, the net effect is to transform some carbon dioxide into methane, increasing the greenhouse effect.

Ian 76.176.210.16 03:37, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

I was hoping someone would be able to intelligently respond; thanks! I would expect the methane to degrade to carbon dioxide... I've never heard that methane persists or reaches any significant level in the atmosphere, yet it is given off in great quantities by swamps, etc, I believe. But thanks, this gives me something to look up and I will stand corrected if real science is making this claim. All I've seen is dubious, even ridiculous assertions like cattle being responsible for "18 percent of greenhouse-gas emissions worldwide" in a recent "Atlantic" magazine article [see pg 30, Primary Sources, March 2007]

Carlw4514 11:03, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

Here's a discussion, with references to various sources, that might be a good jumping off point for research: http://www.aip.org/history/climate/othergas.htm The writer suggests that the contribution of methane (and other gases) to the greenhouse effect was missed for quite some time and its potential importance to climate change has only in recent years become fully appreciated. Human-influenced sources of methane, in order of significance, are given as rice cultivation and cattle farming.

Ian 65.166.166.226 21:39, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

I'll take the time to catch up on this. Thanks for the link. Wikipedia itself has some good stuff, with the usual caution about Wikipedia; although I understand Science is a Wikipedia forte. Where I seem to be on this so far is:

to stand corrected on the matter of "absolutely a complete Canard," that was over the top.

to still be inclined to want to correct any such assertions if they do not point out that such activities cannot increase the amount of Carbon being released into the atmosphere. It is just fundamentally different to have an activity that increases the proportion of methane vis-a-vis carbon dioxide than to have an activity that releases stored carbon such as fossil fuels. The main article, IMO, should be stating something to this effect and does not. Obviously I want to discuss that here before making changes there.

Carl

Carlw4514 21:59, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

I think what the article says now is accurate; it doesn't talk about carbon being released into the atmosphere, it says that cows produce methane from their digestive system and that this is thought to contribute to global warming. The wording is quite in keeping with the current state of scientific knowledge, IMHO. The underlying reason for methane being important is that it has about 20 times the greenhouse effect compared to the same amount of carbon dioxide (that extra information could be stated in the article but it would be off topic it seems to me -- there is an appropriate link there to the Global Warming article for readers to follow).

I think one should not be be misled by thinking of "carbon" separately from the form it takes where the greenhouse effect is concerned, nor should one focus purely on carbon dioxide released by fossil fuels. Other gases like CFCs have an impact, and recently methane released from hydroelectric projects (green energy!) has also come under scrutiny. The whole picture is very complex (and of course, controversial).

Ian 65.166.166.226 01:30, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

Here's what concerns me: other people must be coming to this article after reading a newspaper or magazine article that just says cattle contribute to global warming period; often such articles are exaggerated. Why should they come to Wikipedia and become no more informed? Yes, it's true that if the links are chased, more information can be gaine that way. But I think something could be added to give the hint, at least, that the links should be looked into. I appreciate that *as is* the article has the virtue of being short and to the point regarding the greenhouse gas contribution.

This portion of the article has some other problems. Is "belching" really the term we want to see here? Is "cattle emits" rather than "cattle emit" the right usage?

Carl

Carlw4514 18:07, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

Should we kill of the cows because they contribute to global warming? Or maybe we should Nuke China, Japan and India because they all breath out green house gasses. Oh If we get rid of all the cows I guess we will all have to become vegiterians. But if we eat vegies then photosynthes wont accur. I guess we will just have to starve. At least then the Earths Temperature wont go up. :)

—Preceding unsigned comment added by 713voldemort (talk • contribs) 13:35, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

I have no prior experience of Wikipedia editing, and it looks like I can't edit this article as it's locked. However, here's my thinking on what the relevant paragraph says as I write this:

"Cattle emits a large amount of methane gas in a single day; 95% of this methane is produced through belching, not flatulence [5]. As methane is a potent greenhouse gas (23 times as warming as carbon dioxide), research is underway on dietary supplements that can reduce these releases.[6]."

Firstly, you are quite right that "Cattle emits" is wrong; that's just plain bad English. That should be fixed.

"Belching/flatulence" : I'm not even sure how that's important. What does it matter which end of the cow the methane comes out of? If it is left in, then eructation is a more formal word for belching, but there would be a fair number of people who wouldn't know what eructation means. Belching sounds rude, but it's not slang, it's a proper word. Probably one should write eructation followed by (belching) in parentheses if it were to be written at all.

"in a single day" : This is completely irrelevant as far as I can see. It doesn't matter whether the methane is emitted in a day, an hour or a month. What really matters is the relative emission of methane compared to other human sources, and the comparative greenhouse effect of methane compared to carbon dioxide.

"Methane is a potent greenhouse gas" : This is the real point and should be emphasised more directly than it is. Methane is believed to be a significant contributor to global warming and cattle are one of the major sources of methane emissions.

Here's a suggested re-write of the paragraph:

"Cattle produce large quantities of methane gas from the anaerobic digestion processes in their stomachs [5]. Methane is important to global warming as although it exists in the atmosphere in much lower concentrations than carbon dioxide, it has approximately twenty times the potency as a greenhouse gas [reference needed]. Consequently the overall greenhouse effect of methane is significant. Cattle farming is second in importance only to rice farming as a source of methane emissions resulting from human activities [reference needed]. In view of this, some researchers have investigated the possibility of feed supplements that can reduce methane production by cattle while also benefitting farmers by improving the calorific value of the feed [6]."

Ian 76.176.210.16 07:58, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

I think I can edit it. I'll have a little trial. Ian, is it OK if I use any of your suggested writing?

Carlw4514 16:31, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

Go ahead, it's fine by me. Though I don't like my last sentence much, it's a bit long and convoluted. Also "calorific value" might better be replaced with "nutrition value".

Ian 76.176.210.16 18:21, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

I added some text to address the concern that I had above, that someone might come to this page for the same reason I did, wondering why what I thought was a benign process would get any attention. I hope I have the citations to avoid controversy. I do believe many people (journalists for example!) do not understand that the release of CO2 can be benign... the source of the CO2 is of paramount importance. I consider this a paradox, since common sense seems to say any release of CO2 is a problem. Consider this:

Certain assumptions are being made below, and other secondary considerations are not being addressed, such as soot pollution, etc.

You buy a woodstove (of perhaps futuristic design) that burns wood so purely that the only carbon compounds emitted are pure CO2. You get this wood from a forest owned by a religious community that does not believe in modernity, so the wood is harvested with axes, etc., etc., and no fossil fuels are used to get the wood to your stove. The forest is managed for sustainable harvest, and as much new wood is being grown as is harvested. You burn your wood to your hearts content, pouring CO2 into the atmosphere. Yet you are not contributing to the greenhouse gas problem. Why?

Carl

Carlw4514 13:07, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

OK, I saw the edits, and I don't see any major error with what the text says. As it happens, I only stumbled upon this discussion when I was glancing at the cattle article for a completely unrelated reason. It's not that I have a vested interest in the subject.

Regarding your wood stove example, you could be contributing to the greenhouse gas problem after all. Many people think that growing forests could be a way to reduce CO2 in the atmosphere by tying it up (semi-permanently) in the trees. By cutting down and burning those trees you put back the CO2 that could have stayed out of the air for much longer (especially if the trees were long-lived or got turned into construction wood). Growing trees for fuel is a lost opportunity cost compared to growing trees for posterity.

Ian 76.176.210.16 04:51, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

I'm glad you agree the edits are OK. Like I say, I just imagine someone coming to this section for the same reason I did. Generally, the discussion of Global Warming tends to skip other gases.

Well, Ian, I think you get the example OK and you are right, you would be doing a service to mankind if you preserved the wood in some way rather than burn it. but note:

  • you can not keep that part of the forest from decomposing that dies; the forest would reach maturity and at some point no longer "sink" more carbon.
  • the ultimate mis-use of the forest would be to cut down the trees and build, say, a parking lot. No more carbon sink. If the forest is maintained for sustainable harvest, I would hold the users of that forest harmless no matter what they did.
  • KYOTO looks at it this way, in a manner of speaking, allowing CO2 emissions if "carbon credits" can be established.
  • for me, too, this is not my main interest. Shows you can get wrapped up into things !

Carlw4514 09:46, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

Hi, I'm new to Wiki so I apologize in advance for missteps.

This was an interesting article, but has a tone of advocacy. "A related study at the University of Chicago [3] suggests that eliminating meat and dairy from your diet saves 1.5 tons of greenhouse gases from being emitted each year - contrast that with the meager 1 ton of greenhouse gases saved annually by driving a hybrid car." One ton is meager? 1.5 tons is not?

The article is well documented and impressive, but do the references represent consensus science? (E.g. "In his book The Food Revolution, author John Robbins ...")

I've attended talks on global warming where this issue is treated seriously so I know the gist of the article is considered correct. I'm not challenging that.

Dws wiki 00:49, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

For what it's worth, the objection to cattle is that there's a huge amount of fossil fuel burnt to suppport the raising and transporting of cattle to produce meat and milk. The assumption is that people can and should find more carbon-efficient ways to survive, but are simply to self-absorbed to do so.

The assumption is that the Earth can sustain its existing ecosystems but also feed an ever-increasing human population if only we'd curb our appetites rather than stop having so many children. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mileage (talk • contribs) 06:37, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

This can't be blamed on meat/milk/cows, technology to raise and transport meat/milk/cows that does not contribute to global warming does not exist except for experimental prototypes. This is true for everything we do. The servers hosting this discussion are contributing to global warming. We should worry less about cows and more about generic technology. Carbon-free or massively reduced emission energy creation, storage methods, vehicles and other technology would do far more good for the world than banning cows. We need more research into this and we need to keep vested interests from marginalizing new technology. <>

The author of this article should have done their research. Livestock's Long Shadow, a UN document and not a US document, says that livestock contribute 18% of the world's greenhouse gas emissions however you have to look at the emission sources to understand the fallacy. Over 50% of 18% estimate is based on secondary land use change, that is pastures replacing forests. We don't do this in the United States! The American West was not clearcut to raise cattle and build feedlots. Most of the beef we consume in the US are from US cattle producers. That being said the model used in LLS cannot be applied to the US. The EPA states that all of agriculture emits less than 6% of the overall US inventory and emissions from livestock emit a fraction of that. Bottom line, regardless of how you want to spin it, LLS and the way cattle are produced in the 3rd world cannot be compared to US livestock production practices. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.170.52.157 (talk) 18:32, 10 July 2008 (UTC)



Domesticated?

This article says nothing about how cattle were domesticated and what they were like in the wild before that, when the last wild cattle disappeared, etc. Sylvain1972 17:12, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

If you read through the introduction, you'll find the reader is directed to aurochs, which is the name for wild cattle, for that information. TCC (talk) (contribs) 22:47, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

Brahman_cattle.JPG

It seems that the picture labeled "Brahman_cattle.JPG" is claimed to be in Costa Rica on this page, and on the Brahman (cattle) page the same picture is claimed to be India.

Etymology incorrect

"The English word "cow" is derived from the Sanskrit word "gau" through an Indo-European root" is comepletely misguided. The correct etymology should read:

The English word "cow" comes from the Old English "cu", from Proto Germanic "*kwon", both from the Proto-Indo-European "*gwous", which are perhaps imitative of lowing.

Tidereek 19:06, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

It's just some Out of India theory BS. You should feel free to revert it whenever it pops up. TCC (talk) (contribs) 23:40, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

Cattle size

I tried to find the size information for cattle in the article, but there's none. So, is there any cattle breed whose size larger than the largest wild cattle the gaur ( 900 - 1700 kg), as shown below: (links removed ---J.S (T/C/WRE) 17:04, 18 August 2007 (UTC)) —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 203.221.243.25 (talk) 01:44, 16 May 2007 (UTC).

Probably not, but these cattle are a different species from European cattle. I believe the heaviest Bos taurus is Maine-Anjou cattle. Tractorboy60 14:19, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

Exploding cows!!!

What happens to cows if there are not milked? Do they splode!!! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 204.39.56.236 (talk) 18:41, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

They probably just get extremely bad cramps. ➳ Quin 06:24, 4 October 2007 (UTC)
They get very full and uncomfortable, and dairy types may actually dribble milk on the ground. Then they gradually stop producing, and their udder shrinks a good bit – but during this time they quite easily get mastitis, a serious infection of the udder which can lead to loss of part or all of the udder, or even death. Something about this could perhaps be added to the Husbandry section--Richard New Forest 10:37, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

Environmental Impact

This article is about cattle. Most of this section belongs under vegetarianism or some such related article. In its present form on this page it could be interpreted as WP:SOAP. An encyclopedia article on cattle could mention basic environmental concerns but this level of detail is political and should be switched to the relevant articles. Tractorboy60 18:15, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

I quite agree – see my own comment above... There is a need for some recognition of the environmental impact of modern forms of cattle rearing, but it needs to be much more factual and balanced, and be compared with more environmentally friendly methods.--Richard New Forest 19:22, 28 September 2007 (UTC)
I propose keeping the first two and the last paragraph. The middle part belongs on another article such as vegetarianism, or climate change controversy. The object here should be to try to establish a consensus. We don't want to censor the editor's contribution, just maintain that it belongs on a more relevant article. He could then provide a link to the new article if he wanted. Tractorboy60 08:26, 29 September 2007 (UTC) Indeed, one option would be to keep everything and simply add material that contradicts and balances the section. However, the section would then be twice the size, rendering it 4 or 5 times larger than the (totally inadequate) section on husbandry. Clearly, this is not the place... Tractorboy60 10:48, 29 September 2007 (UTC) Also: "Articles should rely on reliable, third-party published sources with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy", states Wikipedia:Reliable sources. This is clearly not the case with several of this section's citations, which I have tagged. Tractorboy60 11:40, 29 September 2007 (UTC)
I have gone ahead with these changes, as no objections have been raised. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Tractorboy60 (talk • contribs) 18:22, 7 October 2007 (UTC)
Much improved.--Richard New Forest 18:38, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

Brain?

I once heard that cows have only two (oversized) neurons in their head. Is this true, or was it an exaggeration, misconception, or what? The article contains nothing in the "biology" section on this, and yet for most other animals we mention their purported level of intelligence.--190.39.204.66 02:12, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

No its definitely NOT true! A cow's brain has a similar number of neurones to any other mammals its size. Personally, I agree - cows are stupid. But that's opinion, not fact! Dlh-stablelights 08:32, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

Considering that neurons are cells, and that the largest cells are usually sex cells (which are still quite small), how would two neurons take up all the space in the cows' head? Cows may not be capable of much, but they surely have more than two cells in their head!--Once in a Blue Moon 23:48, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

I do not agree that cows are stupid. I've come around from that opinion after 15 years of proximity. I now believe that animals, in general, have keen intelligence, yet in different areas than humans. Their ability to conquer the wild and survive is a great example. Call this "instinct", if you will, but I prefer "intelligence", because they learn to accomplish complex tasks, with purpose. (e.g. solving the problem of getting a gate open to get at higher-quality grass or hay.) I also have observed what I would term as emotional responses in cattle (and other animals). Naturally, the mother-child bond comes to mind. As does the fact that a mother cow "babysits" for others' calves. I have also observed what appears to be grieving (puzzling? curiosity? Whichever you would call it, it shows higher thought), as well as the pairing with the same "friend" over a period of years. —Preceding unsigned comment added by RavennaD (talk • contribs) 16:51, 7 November 2007 (UTC)


Mass noun (Terminology)

I don't agree with the statement that cattle is "not a plural, but a mass noun"?

I agree that it can be a mass noun, but I'm sure it can also be used as a plural. For example, I might say "I have 69 cattle". I would not limit myself to saying "69 head of cattle", although that would be a perfectly correct alternative.

Likewise in a question I'd say "how many cattle?". I'd certainly not use the mass noun construction "how much cattle?" (as in "how much money?" – sand, grass, information, milk etc).

The Oxford English Dictionary does give the plural use, with several examples (the earliest from the early 17th century). My copy is the compact edition, pub 1971:

"Cattle (I, 5). Used also as an ordinary plural of number."

The Concise Oxford Dictionary (mine is 1976 ed) gives cattle as "n. pl." too.

Richard New Forest 14:44, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

You would say "69 head of cattle," and you would also say "How many head of cattle" the noun may be a plural as well, but in those previous example the word cattle has not been declined properly, just as verbs have tense so do nouns, and cattle is an irregular noun in wich many tenses the declination includes Head.Richaemry (talk) 02:46, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

Store Cattle

On the Holstein page I have made a link to Store Cattle i.e. young cattle sold on for fattening. I think this would be the place to put such a section. I have a similar issue with the links loose-housing, stanchion barn and progeny testing, although the latter may have more to do with Dairy Farming. The first two links refer to American terms for types of cattle housing which could arguably be better handled by American editors.Tractorboy60 13:38, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

I've never heard the term "Store Cattle" in the U.S. but it sounds pretty similar to "Feeder Calves", which but does not necessarily imply sold for fattening on a Feed lot, sometimes they are simply called "Feeders", though that term would probably include "Feeder Cattle" which generally implies an older animal which may have been on pasture as a calf. Do you know if there is a difference or is the difference simply two sides of an ocean?--Doug.(talk • contribs) 19:01, 11 October 2007 (UTC)
I'm afraid I don't know, Doug. In Europe you might have, say, a Charolais herd that calved in the spring and the calves would be turned out with their mothers. In November the same calves are taken away and sold as stores and the cows then housed while the equipment and manpower are in place. The term fattening is a bit vague on my part; such stores would probably be winter fed and finished on grass the following year; but if they were autumn born they would likely be grazed the following season and then finished intensively in the winter. If they were sold on between stages they would also be known as stores. Less valuable dairy cross cattle might be reared on a 24 month system emphasizing grazing and being fed low density maintenance rations in the winter. Tom 19:42, 11 October 2007 (UTC)
Sounds like we're talking about versions of the same thing. As I understand it (I only worked on the periphery of the industry), the calves are sold in the fall as "Feeder Calves" and often finished at a Feedlot for slaughter. In New England, I believe most dairy calves, particularly bull calves, would be sold for veal or, occasionally, for working steers.--Doug.(talk • contribs) 20:36, 11 October 2007 (UTC)
I agree with Tom – effectively store cattle are any beef cattle not yet fattened for slaughter. Feedlots as such are unusual in Britain; most beef is grown on grass, and beef breeds are finished on grass or mainly so (I believe we do finish leaner than the US). A lot of more extreme dairy calves are shot at a few days old as nothing much can be done with them economically. My own very extensive cattle (British Whites) are reared on heather and marsh, and finish easily on grass by 30 months (the practical maximum age, due to BSE rules).--Richard New Forest 21:14, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

I bet the British White meat is second to none Richard? You know, I have always had the luck to always find markets for my Holstein bull calves; mainly for veal, at least the animals are wanted, and where there is a money value you have good husbandry. Nowadays, veal crates are banned, so calves are reared in straw yards in groups. I had a neighbour who ran veal crates years ago and like most dairymen, he had a passion for animals and the calves were impeccably clean, well looked after and healthy. You know the smell of calf scour? Not on his unit. Tom 21:38, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

I've added a comment about feeders to the article because someone added "weaners" a term I've only ever heard used for pigs. I didn't mention "stores" as I had forgotten this discussion at the time. Where are they called "weaners"? Also, I noted on the reference to "bullock" that the term is used in North America (at least so far as I'm familiar) to refer to young bulls, not oxen, though the British usage seems to relate to the discussion at Talk:Ox about the word "Ox" meaning a draft animal of either gender, the male being a "Bull Ox", though I'm not sure of the etymology there, just a thought.--Doug.(talk • contribs) 05:27, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

In Australia there are very large "weaner" sales held in many country towns, especially in NSW and Victoria. These calves may already be weaned or have been taken straight off their mothers. Most of these weaners go to restockers as future breeders or for backgrounding. The top weaners may go directly to butchers. Feeders are generally a little older. Bullocks in Australia are older steers, usually over 500 kg. We had bullock teams and wagons etc. never ox(en). Cgoodwin (talk) 10:57, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

Breakout of Ox/Working steers/draft cattle

The Store Cattle/Feeder Calves discussion reminded me that we really ought to have a separate article on oxen, summarized here. Oxen are historically as important in many areas as horses for draft animals and in many developing areas it strikes me that oxen or Domestic buffalo are still used but horses, particularly the large breeds, are virtually unknown.--Doug.(talk • contribs) 20:41, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

I agree. Tom 20:48, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

You may have a good idea. There is a separate article on oxen, ( Ox ) maybe look it over first and see if material here can be moved over there, waiting to delete things on this page until the other is ready. When it is, we can put in a summary of oxen into a small, one paragraph section with the {{Main|(name of article)}} tag. Works well over at [{horse]], which was originally a worse monster of a long article than it is now... Virtually unknown in developing countries, I assume you mean? (smile) "cause out where I live you see a reasonable number of draft horses but oxen of draft cattle? Only as a novelty act in parades! (grin). So very many regional variations, one thing that strikes me is if there is a need for one of those "in the UK they say X but in the USA they say Y, and in the Western United states they say Z (and smile when you say that, pardner...!) Just another thought. Montanabw(talk) 05:07, 22 October 2007 (UTC)
I couldn't find an existing article Ox – it redirects to Cattle#Ox, the same section proposed for breaking-out. Is there something else with a different name?
I agree that a separate article on draught (draft) oxen is a good idea, with a Main Article tag in cattle (and in Working animal and Draft horse). I think the new article should be called Draught ox rather than just Ox, as people searching for "ox" may be looking for other meanings (such as ox-liver), or may just be looking for Cattle after all. Ox on its own would then redirect to the existing Ox (disambiguation) page.
A variation on the proposal occurs to me. Much of the draught oxen stuff is applicable to draught buffalo, horses and indeed other animals. The Working animal article is very general, and doesn't cover this material in detail. The Draft horse article is rather embryonic, and is really more about the type of horse rather than the work they do or how they do it. A better alternative might therefore to be to incorporate draught oxen into a new Draught animal article (currently redirected to Working animal) – this would avoid excessive repetition between, especially, Draught ox and Draught buffalo. Ultimately it would also include the history of draught working, and links to vehicles, machinery etc.--Richard New Forest 10:58, 22 October 2007 (UTC)
I'm putting some things together for this. I disagree on "draft/draught ox",however. All my resources indicate that historically "ox" could include other than steers, but the term was generally exclusive to draft animals. In modern western (world) usage, it seems to have become limited to older steers, often show animals; but I think this is mainly because these were the predominant oxen and no one would try to use a bull or a cow as a show draft animal today for practical reasons. The defining factor in western usage seems to be training, thus the four year minimum age in America. I'm putting together references and we may need to discuss the world-wide and historical usage further before putting the article out there.--Doug.(talk • contribs) 13:31, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

I am for just "Oxen" or "Ox" with a redirect of one to the other, with some additional disambiguation tags. It is the most logical thing people will type into a search box. (FYI, I think I have finally figured out disambig tags, just shout out what you need and I'll work some up). It would be interesting to see what the history of working animal is at the time that "Draught animal" was merged in, there may have been good material there once upon a time, who knows? As for the rest, I personally have never heard of an "Ox" that wasn't a castrated male, though I suppose in a pinch someone might get crazy and yoke up a cow. Given that my understanding is that folks need to start oxen almost as weaned calves, I can't imagine anyone in their right mind trying to put a bull to draft work, but then what background I have is with beef cattle, and even the cows and steers are pretty fiesty out here! Montanabw(talk) 20:22, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

The use of cows for draft was apparently fairly common among colonial Americans who might not have always had the resources to keep a heavy feeder like a four year old castrated male, in addition the working cow would be dual-purpose (actually triple) in one animal. My sources call these "oxen" historically, together with stags and even in some cases bulls (presumably of some of the calmer breeds). I may have mispoken to say that the defining point was completely one of training, it seems that a four year old steer is considered both fully trained (or at least as good as it's going to get) and fully grown, which is very important for draft. It sounds like the concern with bulls is twofold, the attitude and the muscling, which in steers is more suited to heavy work. Of course, for modern show/competition, nothing beats a four year old steer and that's the only experience most moderns would have.--Doug.(talk • contribs) 21:41, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

I also found references that the term is only correctly applied to members of two species: Bos indicus and Bos taurus, even though the dictionary definitions seem to apply to any member of the Genus Bos. This is a bit problematic, since some of the wild species of Bos are referred to as oxen as well and some other articles on Wikipedia seem to use "ox" as if it were the singular of "cattle", historically at least that may have some validity.--Doug.(talk • contribs) 21:54, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

From the tone of this conversation, my thinking is that a) time to get started and b) it will be wise to source this article as you go; I have noticed that where there are going to be such disputes, footnoting as you go eliminates many heated discussions. It probably would work to discuss both modern and historical uses. At this point, my thinking is that maybe you should take the ox/oxen section here, copy it back into the original Ox/Oxen article (search for it and when it redirects, click the blue link to get to the redirect page.). Then, with that as a start, use the area as a sandbox to refine the article further, then when it is ready to "go live," you can then cut the section here to a short paragraph and use the "main" template to direct readers over to the other article. If I have the gumption, I'll do that much. Montanabw(talk) 01:26, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

 Done I haven't shortened what's here yet, nor done any substantive edits to the new article, but the articles are split. So the section on Oxen here needs to be shortened. Further discussion on the article Ox should continue at Talk:Ox.--Doug.(talk • contribs) 21:07, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

Banners

Is there a reason that this is tagged by WikiProject Tree of Life when it's also tagged by the child project WikiProject Mammals? It's getting pretty cluttered here. I just added the Project Banner Shell to help things a little.--Doug.(talk • contribs) 04:11, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

Galleries BAAAAADDDD!

Gang, the gallery in this article is growing out of control, and I recommend that someone check wikimedia commons, see if a page needs to be created there for all the cow photos, put in the appropriate link and toss this thing entirely. Reason #1 is that these things just keep growing and growing and growing. Reason #2 is that they contribute little to the article if they aren't illustrating a point in the text. Reason #3 is: Wikipedia is not a mirror or a repository of links, images, or media files. My position is that if the gallery is sort of a sandbox for images that may be worked into the article itself, then move it here to the talk page for awhile so it's handy to the editors, otherwise, just make sure everything is in Commons and toss the booger. If no one complains, in 3-4 days, I'll toss it myself if I get around to it. Montanabw(talk) 19:19, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

Agreed that a gallery is probably unnecessary. I'll do some work in the next couple days to bring images out of the gallery and into text (replacing some images, not crowding the article by adding a lot more) in an attempt to show the most diverse array of cattle possible. VanTucky Talk 00:29, 3 November 2007 (UTC)
Done. VanTucky Talk 22:02, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

Grammar Error in Environmental Impact

From the environmental impact section: "Research is underway on methods of reducing this source of methane, by the use to dietary supplements, or treatments to reduce the proportion of methanogenetic microbes, perhaps by vaccination". I think the "to" in "by the use to dietary supplements" should be replace with "of".
Stephanecastel 16:34, 9 November 2007 (UTC)


Cattle in Hindu tradition

Mahabharata is a Hindu scripture, but it is certainly does not costitute Vedic Religion. This section refers to Mahabharata to support anti beef stance of Vedic religion. Vedic religion promoted beef as can be seen at

There is no consensus on whether the cow was sacred and forbidden in the Hindu diet from ancient Vedic times. The Vedic sacrifices, after which the sanctified meat was eaten, include bovines, and even at a funeral ceremony. ref

and

A passage in the Rig Veda describes how to apportion the meat of a sacrificed horse. Beef was also eaten, although this practice gradually declined...ref

Unsigned comment added by User:202.68.145.230 13:39, 18 November 2007 (dated by Richard New Forest (talk) 19:54, 18 November 2007 (UTC))

possible factual error (NPOV)

This article states that horses are red/green color blind. I would like to point out that this fact has been disputed. I have, in fact, known horses who could see the color red, demonstrated by their reluctance to approach fences with red flowers or poles.

I also must take issue with the section on the environmental impact of cattle. While cattle do contribute to green house gasses via methane as a by-product of manure, without them our world would cease to exist. Think about how many pounds of beef and milk must be produced to feed 3 billion people? Feedlots are the best means of ensuring the humane treatment of the animals, the livelihood of the farmer, and the availibility of the needed products. The article puts the cattle industry in such a negative light; it seems to suggest that doing away with feedlots would have a significant impact on green house gas emissions and thus global warming. This is not a provable fact, but an opinion, and thus should not be inferred by the article. Futuredvm12 (talk) 18:48, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

I'm an enthusiastic meat-eater and former farmer but I still have to disagree with some of your statements. Our world would not "cease to exist" without cattle, it would just be a different world. Instead of thinking about how many pounds of beef are needed to feed six billion people, think instead of how much easier it would be to feed those people without the 8:1 loss of feeding the cows - we could all just eat the grain ourselves.
I don't read the article the same as you, it doesn't advocate doing away with feedlots. In fact if you follow some of the links, you find that it is a proven fact that adjusting the feed composition can easily reduce methane emissions with significant impact. Perhaps the article should be more clear on this.
Also I don't believe that stating neutral facts about contributions of livestock to net greenhouse gases casts a negative light on cattle-rearing, the gases themselves are negative.
And I do note that the article doesn't mention that feedlots present the best opportunity to capture the methane emissions from manure.
So yes, the article could be better, any specific ideas to improve it? Franamax (talk) 20:37, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

When cattle um.... "fart" they excrite methane gas wich is bad for the ozone layer of the atmoshpere. You might want to cross referance this because I am not to sure. If you have anything to correct or add feel free. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 151.200.113.235 (talk) 01:52, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

Yes, cattle give off methane from both ends, but they actually burp a lot of it, the rumen is closer to the mouth than the butt. it is covered in the references. Franamax (talk) 00:44, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

I think these issues are still unresolved, but I would like to see them resolved, because I think it's an important section; I imagine people looking for the environmental impact of cows will come to this very page. I'm pretty bad at making articles neutral, but I'll see what I can chip away here and there. I hope someone decides to be bold about this, though. 72.89.252.135 (talk) 14:46, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

Environmental Impact - neutrality tag

I disagree that this tag should be removed quite yet. There are some individual tags which need to be resolved first.

The second sentence is using words like "damage" instead of "impact", "in almost every case" (WP:SYNTH), "massive damage".

We have intensification is necessary/intensification is the problem in the same section, but these views aren't presented in neutral opposition, they are in contradiction.

And there's a general lack of quality. Yes, the neutrality tag isn't intended to flag crappy content, but it's a useful spur to editors to keep on chipping away at this area. Franamax (talk) 00:23, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

Grammar error in Types of cattle

The final sentence, "Many other large animal species, including whales, hippopotamuses, camels, elk, and elephants, use the terms "bull", "cow" and "calf" to denote males, females, and young within the species" should read "With many other large animal species, including whales, hippopotamuses, camels, elk, and elephants, the terms "bull", "cow" and "calf" are used to denote males, females, and young within the species", to avoid the implication that other animals speak (and in English, too). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.8.5.138 (talk) 20:48, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

Thanks 85.8..., we've got that fixed. Now that I look at it though, why is that section called "Types of Cattle" at all? To me, types of cattle means Hereford, Charolais, etc. Of course, that is really "breeds of cattle", but how is a bull a "type of cattle"? Should it be "Cattle Nomenclature" instead? Anyone? Franamax (talk) 22:35, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

When i read the articels written by many people i already know that it is a very good website . I will also recomand this website to my other friends —Preceding unsigned comment added by 165.21.154.93 (talk) 04:39, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

Merger is bad idea

  • Oppose merge. With the rationale of this proposed merger the already long "cattle" article would become ridiculously long and unwieldy, since one would logically want to merge all sorts of peripheral cattle topics here. Cewvero (talk) 21:17, 8 April 2008 (UTC)
  • Oppose. This merger proposal borders on the absurd. Given this rationale hundred of articles could be merged here. This is sufficiently absurd that I'm going to remove the merger tag. Dgf32 (talk) 01:09, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

Changes required!

It is stated within the page that cattle have one stomach with 4 compartments, this is not technically true. Whilst it can be argued that the reticulum and rumen are just two compartments of the same stomach the abomasum is an entirely separate stomach. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Vetandy (talk • contribs) 21:07, 3 May 2008 (UTC) Origin of Cattle

Origins of Cattle

I came to wikipedia looking for information about the origins, so if some more familiar with the subject has the time they might want to add something like this following article from-nationalzoo.si.edu/Publications/ZooGoer/2004/4/kidsfarmside.cfm Maybe condensing these origination ideas here and expanding the origins section on Aurochs with a link to that main article at wikipedia.org/wiki/Aurochs#Origin By the way, I didn't know what Aurochs were nor did I expect that origins of cattle would be discussed in the aurochs article.

Excerpts from the article I found via web search: Clues about the origins of cattle domestication first came from the archaeological record. The distinction between wild and domesticated animal remains is not always clear, but scientists looked for groups of bones with characteristics suggestive of life in a tended herd. For example, cattle from a domestic herd were more likely to be of similar age when slaughtered than wild varieties, and groups of males were more likely to be killed than offspring-producing females. ....... Conventional wisdom held that African, European, and Indian cattle descended from aurochs domesticated in the Near East, from which two types of cattle, the humped Bos indicus and the humpless Bos taurus, evolved subsequent to domestication. The two cattle types are named as separate species, but their taxonomy is still debated, and some scientists argue they should be classified as subspecies. However, recent DNA evidence suggests that cattle evolved into different types before they were domesticated. The authors of 1994 and 1996 papers in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences believe Indian cattle diverged about 200,000 years ago and formed a genetically distinct group (B. indicus). Long before Near Eastern cattle were domesticated, the remaining group split again about 25,000 years ago into two groups that are the forebears of African and European cattle. The data suggest that not all modern cattle breeds are descended from Near Eastern cattle, and that there was not a single original domestication event. Rather, cattle were independently domesticated in what are now India and Pakistan, in the Fertile Crescent, and possibly in Africa. European cattle are most likely related to those domesticated in the Fertile Crescent. However, the origins of African breeds appeared a bit more complex. ....... Jared Diamond, author of the 1997 book Guns, Germs, and Steel, supports both genetic divergence and dual domestication: “…genetic analyses show that the ancestors of modern Indian and western Eurasian cattle breeds diverged from each other hundreds of thousands of years ago, long before any animals were domesticated anywhere. That is, cattle were domesticated independently in India and western Eurasia, starting with wild Indian and western Eurasian cattle subspecies that had diverged hundreds of thousands of years earlier,” he says. In order to trace cattle ancestry, scientists compared mitochondrial gene sequences from hair follicles and blood samples of modern cattle. Because scientists know the rate at which certain DNA sequences mutate, studying the accumulation of mutations in cattle DNA samples ..... Now extinct, remnant populations of wild European aurochs existed until 1627. Curious about whether the wild aurochs of Europe interbred with domestic cattle that came from the Near East, scientists studied DNA sequences from four auroch bones discovered in Britain that were between 3,000 and 8,000 years old. In 2001, they revealed in Nature that while the British auroch sequences were closer to that of B. taurus than to B. indicus, they were very different from modern domesticated European cattle. This showed that wild aurochs roaming Europe did not interbreed with domestic cattle and supports the idea that the ancestors of European cattle were imported from the Near East. As Daniel Bradley, a coauthor of the study, explains in Natural History Magazine, “Today, a British cow’s mitochondrial genes are much more similar to the genes of a cow—ancient or modern—from Syria or Turkey, than to the genes of the wild ox that used to roam the island.” By 3000 B.C.E. domestic cattle were firmly established in ancient Egyptian farming, religion, and culture. ..... unsigned comment added by 172.163.205.185 (talk) 03:44, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

Combining of two subsections

I propose to combine the "Uses of cattle" with "Husbandry" subsections. There is some overlap already (eg disease noted in domesticated herds). The new title could be "Domestication" or "Husbandry". What do others think? Cheers. Cewvero (talk) 14:29, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

I would agree with this, perhaps "Domestication and husbandry" as the title. For the paragraph order, I would suggest: early uses/domestication; small-scale use, care & handling; dairy; ranching; large-scale meat (feedlots); other agriculture (eg veal, leather, ag. shows); other uses (bullfighting, etc.). Also, herd management/breeding and artificial insemination should be in there, AI has been hugely important in the modern history. And maybe something about diease - brucellosis, BSE, bluetongue, anthrax. Franamax (talk) 18:40, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

Vandalism

There is obvious vandalism on this page, for example in the sentence on the color of cattle. 12.22.83.98 (talk) 20:12, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

Text sourced to E.O. Wilson regarding cattle lifespan

This text in question was not added or deleted by me, but I would vote for its inclusion (after some copy and NPOV editing):

"Do [sic] to the recent genetic altering of most farm animals, the average life span of cattle has dropped by nearly forty percent. As a result, their population has risen significantly, greatly increasing their contribution to global warming.[1]"

From my recollection this text is in keeping with Wilson's work. Don't have the book with me just now, and will try to check it sometime in the fall. Cewvero (talk) 14:31, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

I think that this is nonsense, since farm animals almost never die natural deaths. It's true that they may be killed for meat earlier due to genetic altering which allows them to reach maximal growth in in minimal time. It's also true that the population of farm animals has increased, but not because of genetic altering, but simply because of increased demand worldwide for meat, eggs and dairy. The contribution of farmed animals to global warming has not increased as a result of genetic engineering unless the cattle have been bred to produce more methane, which I've never heard. I question the validity of this source if it actually says this. The lifespan of an animal has far less effect on global warming than the number of animals and claiming that the number has increased because of shorter life expectancy is silly. I do not think that this should be included unless it has another reference, easily verifiable by all editors. Bob98133 (talk) 15:19, 27 May 2008 (UTC)
I agree with Bob here. Even if there is a link between "genetic altering" (aka breeding) and lifespan, there is no link to population numbers. The cattle population depends only on the demand for milk and beef. Making a statement like that and sourcing it to a 256-page book is not acceptable - what page number is it on? Franamax (talk) 15:44, 27 May 2008 (UTC)
The statement as offered is certainly nonsense, but there is some truth mixed in there. In fact the story is different for dairy and for beef.
"Genetic altering" is misleading, as it sounds like artificial gene modification, which mercifully has not yet happened for commercial animals. What has happened to dairy cattle is that they have been conventionally bred to be extremely high-yielding, and in the course of that they have become very genetically uniform (with an effective genetic population size for all the millions of Holsteins of well under 100). Breeding solely for productivity has led to animals which have poor feet, poor immune systems and short lifespans, often being milked for only four seasons or so (traditional cows might last for 10 or more).
The shorter lifespan does not mean that there are more animals in milk – a herd of the same size just has a lower average age. Also, the yield per cow is very much higher, and so the number of cows per litre of milk produced is lower. The short lifespan does lead to a somewhat increased number of dairy cattle per cow in milk, because each female spends a larger proportion of its life as a pre-milking heifer – although this is offset by the heifers growing much faster, having their first calf younger, and therefore starting their first lactation earlier.
Modern intensive beef cattle also have much shorter lifespans, for a different reason. They are fed much more, grow much faster and are killed much younger – at 18 to 25 months, as against extensive cattle which might be killed as prime stock at three to five years. Actually quick growth also means fewer cattle overall for the same amount of beef, because for each animal ready to kill there are fewer of its siblings still growing. (At any one time for each ready-to-eat beef animal we now just have one breeder cow, her calf and her yearling calf. An animal killed at five has another three younger siblings as well.)
Finally (and this needs to be dealt with more generally in the section), more cattle as such does not necessarily mean more global warming. It is keeping cattle intensively which does this, as these methods use huge amounts of fuel and fuel-based fertiliser to grow the grain and silage they need to produce so much. However it is perfectly possible to keep cattle without using any grain, on land which could not grow anything else (as it happens that's how I keep my own cattle). Under stable land-use patterns the only greenhouse gas such cattle produce is methane, and that's something their wild ancestors and competitors have always done on a similar or perhaps even greater scale (but not if land use changes from trees to grass, when the carbon from the destroyed trees does contribute greatly). In intensive farming, yields of milk or meat are far higher per animal, but per tonne of CO2 they are far lower.
So it is not the reduced lifespan of cattle that produces greenhouse gases, but intensive farming which both reduces lifespan and increases the gases.
I'm not familiar with the reference given, but surely E O Wilson is too good a scientist to have come up with anything supporting the nonsense statement as made. If anyone has access to the book, let's have the relevant passage quoted here and we can judge it. --Richard New Forest (talk) 22:13, 27 May 2008 (UTC)
Richard, you make some excellent points and give a very good analysis. The concentration of genetic lineage, in dairy cattle in particular, is quite notable - if you can figure out a way to put that in the article, please do so. As regards methane production, I wandered through a forest of links some time ago and found some studies asserting that it is actually quality of forage which has a major effect on methane per unit of feed - so putting your cattle on marginal grassland or feeding them poor-quality hay could be bad too. However I didn't bookmark the page, and I haven't found any good comparisons of methane production between grain-fed and grass-fed cows. Your point about carbon-equivalent intensity of production is well-taken, but can you find some good sources to support it? Also, it would be good to incorporate into this article the contrast between "traditional" cattle husbandry (putting a herd to pasture or range), and "intensive" rearing, meaning high use of grain feed, hormones and antibiotics, combined with confinement in small yards and feedlots. Franamax (talk) 22:48, 27 May 2008 (UTC)
You're right that some research has shown that poor forage produces more methane (and I can't remember the details either). I remain open-minded about this, mainly because such research is very hard to do thoroughly. As I remember it the differences were not all that large, and that means that quite minor tweaking of conditions might well change the result. Firstly you have to keep a uniform bunch of animals in a closed shed and measure the methane given off when they are fed different things – this is very different from real foraging conditions (they cannot select their food, they do not exercise, they may eat the food more quickly etc etc). Secondly, the results may be sensitive to the type of animals used – such research typically uses commercial animals, and these may not be adapted to eating rough vegetation (commercial animals do not do well on rough grazing, so are unlikely to cope well with eating the same things in a shed). Finally, I'd like to see domestic herbivores compared with the wild ones they replace (the world has lived with large numbers of herbivores for a very long time), and also with alternative land uses (I believe rice paddies produce huge amounts of methane). --Richard New Forest (talk) 08:55, 28 May 2008 (UTC)


Weird Jab?

In Domestication and husbandry there is a weird politcal attack at europeans, contrasting their evil practise of controlling cattle with fences vs Fulani behavioral control. I guess no one else on the planet fences or otherwise misstreats cattle? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.170.52.157 (talk) 18:13, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

I don't read any jab at all there. It's a neutral and sourced statement pointing out that different cultures approach husbandry in different ways. Nothing in there says that fences are bad. Franamax (talk) 18:42, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

Links?

A link to bovine health and/or disease would be very helpful. Cgoodwin (talk) 06:37, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

Critter

Is the word "critter" really used for cows? I've only heard it used for small wild animals such as raccoons. Sluggoster (talk) 21:40, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

I agree with sluggoster how on earth do people get a name used for little animals for such a big animal?. i think this article should be freely edited not block the page. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 60.242.105.47 (talk) 08:35, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

Improper use of the words 'term' and 'accurate' in the Terminology section

The last clause in the second sentence below (from the Terminology section) needs to be rephrased:

However, it [the word 'cow] is easy to use when a singular is needed and the gender is not known, as in "There is a cow in the road". Further, any herd of fully mature cattle in or near a pasture is statistically likely to consist mostly of cows, so the term is probably accurate.

What you want is something like such an application of the term will, on most occasions, be accurate. This might sound pedantic, but terms are not per se accurate or inaccurate; rather, accuracy is concerned only with how terms are used. Nastes (talk) 07:58, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

World cattle population

There are three different figures listed in the article for the world cattle population: 1.3 billion (in preamble), 1.5 billion (in Environmental impact section), and 995,838,000 (in the Present Status section). This is a contradiction that should be fixed. Tenawy (talk) 20:57, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

Cattle in Heraldry

Might be worth adding the arms of Oxford to the section on cattle in heraldry. It features a bull crossing the river. I don't have a free image to hand. 81.156.168.154 (talk) 22:15, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

Singulative number, mass noun

Singulative number is a grammatical category used in East African Cushitic Languages (among others) and has nothing to do with the content in the paragraph. The "see also" links is therefore misleading. Since the page is protected, I ask for this link to be removed.

Another point is whether cattle is actually a mass noun, as implied in the paragraph. If it is, then it would take singular agreement in the following sentence "The cattle you bought is beautiful", analagous to rice or water. I have no idea how this works in English, but if the preceding sentence sounds weird, then we are probably not dealing with a mass noun. I suggest the following modification

Cattle is both a plural and a mass noun, but there is no singular equivalent: it is a plurale tantum.

-->

Cattle can only be used in the plural and not in the singular: it is a plurale tantum. Jasy jatere (talk) 14:49, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

Singulative number

The definition given of singulative number in its article does seem to include "cattle" – it is even given as an example. It therefore looks to me as if that link is correct. Richard New Forest (talk) 19:21, 22 October 2008 (UTC)
singulative is a morphological category, expressed by an affix or similar things. Lexical solutions like "a head of cattle" do not count as singulatives. If you said cattlep, where p was a singulative suffix, and you said fishp and deerp etc, that would be a singulative. Note that the article says "rough equivalent" not "typical case". Jasy jatere (talk) 21:24, 22 October 2008 (UTC)
Looking again at the Singulative number article, I think you are right after all, and the use there of "cattle" as an example is spurious. I can't think of an English example of a singular affix. The only English ordinary nouns I can think of which do not use a plural affix are those like "mouse/mice" and "woman/women" where the plural has a vowel change, and those (commonly quarry animals) which have both plural and singular the same, like "salmon", "deer" and "grouse". Richard New Forest (talk) 13:25, 23 October 2008 (UTC)

Mass noun

However, I think you may be right that "cattle" is not a mass noun. In addition to the example you give (which seems fairly conclusive), another test is the way it is dealt with in a question. "How much sand (milk, salt, water) do you have?" is the form for mass nouns, while "how many dogs (horses, chairs, cars) do you have?" is the form for countable nouns. Cattle can only follow the latter form, which I think disqualifies it as a mass noun. It is not true (as is sometimes said) that numbers of cattle have to be in the form "head of cattle". I can correctly say either "I have 81 cattle" or "I have 81 head of cattle" (literally true in my case...). It is only in the singular that it has to be "one head of cattle" – but this is because it is a plurale tantum, not because it's a mass noun. See discussion at Talk:Mass noun. Meanwhile I have altered that sentence as you suggest. Richard New Forest (talk) 19:21, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

Oxen

On the note of the above discussion, I have always understood an Ox to only be an adult castrated male bovine... steer/Ox ("Bullock" in the UK??); heifer/cow; in the US, we tend to say "bull calf" for uncastrated weaners. I've certainly never heard of a cow or bull called an "ox." But just curious about this... Montanabw(talk) 00:01, 23 October 2008 (UTC)

That would cover UK usage too, except we also use "ox" for derivatives of adult cattle other than "proper" beef, such as ox-blood, ox-liver, ox-heart, oxtail, ox-hide. Also ox-cart, ox plough. What are those things called in America? Whether "ox" for a live animal in UK usage means an adult steer or only a draught animal is unclear to me, as in practice the two are generally the same thing: historically steers would not be kept to adulthood except for draught, and females and bulls have rarely been used for draught in the UK. A cart pulled by bulls (in, say, India) would still be called an ox-cart though.
All that seems to suggest that "ox" does just mean unspecified adult cattle. It does not however mean that "ox" is the singular of "cattle" – it has its own plural, "oxen". However "ox", "oxen" and "cattle" may perhaps be like "person", "persons" and "people", where "person" is often used inaccurately as the singular of "people", in the absence of an alternative. Incidentally, "people" is a closely parallel case to "cattle": I can say "four people", but not "one people" (in that sense). Richard New Forest (talk) 13:25, 23 October 2008 (UTC)
Interesting analysis. Manualrecord (talk) 15:19, 23 October 2008 (UTC)
By this analysis, Ox does sort of imply a castrated male, as I certainly have never heard of a cow (i.e. female) used as draft animal, though obviously old cows do meet an end at the slaughterhouse as a general rule. There is a certain genderedness to rural language, though, which is not uncommon; in some historical contexts, "horse" means a male, usually a stallion. (I still hear some old-timers say "horse colt" to refer to an uncastrated young male). As for the rest, we use "beef" as the catchall term for the animal products here in the states, almost the only liver we eat is beef liver, so "liver" or "beef liver" (to distinguish it from other animal livers, which usually wind up in pet food) is used. Oxhide is usually "leather" or "rawhide" or "steerhide" or often, "cowhide." You really DO NOT want to know what we call Ox-tail, ox-heart, etc... in the USA...usually some less-than-polite variation on "completely inedible-feed it to the crows!" (grinning, ducking and running...!) Montanabw(talk) 18:00, 23 October 2008 (UTC)
Oxtail is one of the best bits! Soup, stew, casserole... Ox heart is good too, if cooked right, and even lights (lungs) is excellent as pate etc. Ox-blood can be made into black pudding, but that's illegal at the moment in Europe because of BSE (only pig's blood is used). As for other livers – what on earth's wrong with lamb's liver and pig's liver? Lovely! Richard New Forest (talk) 20:45, 23 October 2008 (UTC)
In Australia we only use ox as the term "Jap(anese) ox" which is used for grain fed steers in the weight range of 500 to 650 kg that are destined for the Japanese meat trade. Otherwise we use steer, and bullock for the heavier steers over about 500 kg. Oh, and lamb's liver is lamb's fry here, LOL. Cgoodwin (talk) 21:53, 23 October 2008 (UTC)
OK now you did it. I really did NOT need to be reminded of the existence of black pudding! You see, these things are scary to us Yanks. We eat normal, healthy things like Jello, potato chips, pork rinds, Twinkies, Cheetos, and (OMG, even I didn't know about this one) the Luther Burger! (grin) These items too may contain unspeakable animal parts, (and god know what else) but if we don't speak of them, they don't exist, right? (LOL!)Montanabw(talk) 03:44, 25 October 2008 (UTC)
What wimps! Though I don't think I'd be able to stomach a Luther Burger. In some Scottish chip shops it's possible to buy (and presumably eat...) battered, deep-fried Mars bars, which I think fall into much the same category. Richard New Forest (talk) 14:50, 25 October 2008 (UTC)
Oh good, Americans aren't the only people with horrifying dietary habits! And now I know where ours came from -- the Scots-Irish! (Says the person of German ancestry) Note: Law and sausage. LOL!! Montanabw(talk) 23:12, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

Do you mean "laws, like sausages", as quoted in John Godfrey Saxe? Richard New Forest (talk) 09:53, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

Precisely! It's election 2008 here in America! Oddly enough, in popular culture, the saying is usually ascribed to Otto von Bismarck, though Saxe appears to have been the actual source? LOL! Montanabw(talk) 16:49, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

Ozone

There are several ways by which Ozone gas can be produced on the earth. Cow and Tulsi are two of them, they emmit ozone gas as one of the products in their exhalation. With global warming, Ozone layer is breaking and need to be supported by Ozone emitters otherwise ultraviolet rays can cause severe damage to humankind.(NASA:Artical 107.00.1 page 12, http://www.nasa.gov/centers/Cow/news/X-Press/stories/2008/10_08_up_up_away.html) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Janardanupadhyay (talk • contribs) 22:05, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

(That seems to be a dead link...) Are you perhaps getting confused with methane, which is indeed produced by the digestive system of cattle? In any case, the ozone layer which absorbs UV is formed in place (above most of the atmosphere), and is not connected with ozone pollution produced at ground level. Richard New Forest (talk) 22:27, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

Domestication of Cattle

{{editsemiprotected}} Please add the following passage to the section on domestication.

There are two broad theories about how cows were domesticated. The first is with fields of grain budding outside their homes, the Neolithic farmers faced the problem of scavengers. Not just birds and rodents, but also lumbering herbivores that would have eaten and trampled every fragile shoot of barley within scent. At first, the offended farmers probably roasted and boiled the trespassers, and we can imagine them ganging together to lie in wait to take revenge on a hoodlum aurochs. Eventually, the farmers probably realized that, instead killing the vandals, they could coral them and eat them later. Once penned, the most aggressive animals earned first place on the butcher’s block, and over generations their rowdiest traits receded into genetic memory. The descendents were more pliant. This process would have taken centuries, but such is the pace of genetics.

The second theory of animal domestication is based on weather. Around 6400 years ago a second post-glacial climatic shock parched the Middle East with a ruinous drought. The hungry farmers might have looked back at the animals pasturing on the margins of the tilled land and realized that if these beasts could be tamed they could be walked to areas where there the rain still fell. Animals were a good way of “spreading their investments” in case of a collapse in the expected order of the universe. Shooing their herds before them, people chased the rains.[2]

129.11.77.197 (talk) 08:42, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

Is this tertiary source really a reliable one? Does it give any secondary sources for the two theories? Neither seems very plausible to me as written, and they do read rather like off-the-cuff Just-so stories. For example, pastoralists generally don't grow crops, and (even as a farmer of free-ranging cattle) I'd not be too sure about my ability to "shoo" a couple of hundred aurochs, each bigger than modern domestic cattle, and each no doubt with a nasty look in its eye. This book (which does seem to be well-reviewed) is a compendium of information from many other places – I'd like to see what the secondary sources say, and it is anyway these which should be our sources here.
If the more direct sources do turn out to be reliable, then yes, let's have the material in, but it will need to be heavily rewritten to fit with WP style. Richard New Forest (talk) 18:02, 27 November 2008 (UTC)
Richard, there weren't pastoralists until domestication, so that's kind of a faulty line of logic. I have commonly heard the first domestication theory, but never the second. Still, needs some verification. Steven Walling (talk) 22:25, 27 November 2008 (UTC)
Fair point... But once they'd domesticated the animals, then they were pastoralists. I had always understood that pastoralism generally came before arable farming, but perhaps I'm wrong about that. Certainly modern pastoral peoples who have what might be called undeveloped lifestyles are pastoral first, arable second, if at all (Maasai, Sami etc). Did such peoples go through an arable agriculture stage? Tricky growing crops on the tundra... Either way, these theories need proper sources. Richard New Forest (talk) 15:47, 1 December 2008 (UTC)
I'll second Richard's notion that domestication of herd animals may have come prior to tilling of the soil, or at the very least, came prior to cultivation in many cultures (thinking of same nomadic peoples who herd but do not farm.) Certainly one sees many examples of animal husbandry where soil cultivation is minimal or nonexistent. However, on that note, I'm afraid I haven't the time to read up on it, and I can't find my copy of Jarad Diamond's Guns, Germs and Steel, which has a nice short chapter that discusses which animals were domesticated, how and when. Montanabw(talk) 18:31, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

Polymelia

I have added a photo of a grown steer here that has 5 five legs. A front on photo has also been uploaded to commons. Should the photo or a link be included? Cgoodwin (talk) 05:02, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

Cow's DNA Sequence Reveals Mankind's Influence Over Last 10,000 Years

This is an article that someone with permission to edit may wish to consider including as a link. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/04/23/AR2009042303453.html —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.90.13.195 (talk) 23:05, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

Yes I noticed the Yahoo article on this news story just minutes ago and now I saw your post. I'll attempt to put this into the article. Dionyseus (talk) 02:51, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

A call for standardization of ISO for.....

http://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&lr=&newwindow=1&q=allintitle%3A+Aspergillus+fumigatus+cow&btnG=Search --222.64.223.101 (talk) 04:15, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

http://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&lr=&newwindow=1&q=allintitle%3A+Aspergillus+fumigatus+cows&btnG=Search --222.64.223.101 (talk) 04:16, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

http://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&lr=&newwindow=1&q=allintitle%3A+Aspergillus+fumigatus+cattle&btnG=Search --222.64.223.101 (talk) 04:19, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

http://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&lr=&newwindow=1&q=allintitle%3A+Aspergillus+fumigatus+disease&btnG=Search --222.64.223.101 (talk) 04:22, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

The list of languages ought to link to the Irish wiki (link - ga:bó ). As an unregistered IP, I can't do this myself.

Thanks in advance, The Randomly-assigned IP. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.16.95.59 (talk) 19:16, 27 May 2009 (UTC)

Done! Not much article at the other end though, better get writing! :) Franamax (talk) 16:07, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

Vandalism

There is a bit of vandalism on this page ("Cattle, colloquially referred to as cows, are domesticated ungulates, a member of the subfamily Bovinae of the family Bovidae. THEY REALLY LIKE www.graypickles.com!!!!"), but I have no interest in getting an account here and as an anon I'm not allowed to edit the page, so... I can't do anything about it. 96.229.70.221 (talk) 19:54, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

Sorted. An account is free, you know... Richard New Forest (talk) 21:00, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

Word origins section

Seems there is a small editing dispute over if a word origins/etymology section is needed, and if so, what it should contain. Anyone with a comment, best we bring it here and resolve it. I favor keeping these, wiktionary isn't always in line with wikipedia. Montanabw(talk) 22:15, 29 July 2009 (UTC)

Well, maybe it is about the words not the things, but the history of the words is closely associated with the history of cattle themselves (as chattels etc), and isn't the material rather long and complex for Wictionary anyway? The Wiktionary article does cover some of the material, but in much less detail. I think keep it in. Richard New Forest (talk) 11:48, 30 July 2009 (UTC)
My thinking as well, but others seem to disagree. I did restore the colloquialisms also, sourcing "critter," (the one I know), the others probably need sourcing, too. Montanabw(talk) 00:05, 31 July 2009 (UTC)

Heifers and Cows

{{editsemiprotected}} The article states "A young female that has had only one calf is occasionally called a first-calf heifer." In Ireland (and likely the UK as well, but a UK farmer can confirm that) a female that has has given birth once is a cow-heifer, and is properly referred to as a cow when she has had a second calf. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Registar (talk • contribs) 23:10, 28 August 2009

In my experience (in the UK) "heifer" with no other qualifier or context is a female who's never had a calf (I have one who's eleven years old!), and once she has a calf she qualifies as a cow, with no intermediate stage – the UK government also uses this definition in formal contexts (such as when the numbers of heifers and cows on a farm have to be entered on forms). However, in the context of a herd of cows and calves, a contrast is often needed between a first-time mum and a more experienced cow, and the term heifer is then still used (for example: "that one's a heifer but she's doing her calf well"). I've never heard the term "cow-heifer", but I think most British farmers would work out what is meant by it. I'm also not sure if we actually use the term "first-calf heifer", but the meaning of that would be clear enough too. There may of course be other regional usages I'm unfamiliar with. If we can find a ref for "cow-heifer" it could be added to the article. Richard New Forest (talk) 10:19, 29 August 2009 (UTC)

Not done: Welcome and thanks for contributing. I agree with RNF that this would be an interesting fact to add if it were sourced and worded well. A use of the expression in a newspaper or a trade journal might be enough, but ideally the source should make the claim that cows in this situation are sometimes called cow-heifer. Regards, Celestra (talk) 14:38, 29 August 2009 (UTC)

In the section about domesticated cattle, there is this sentence: "Many routine husbandry practices involve ear tagging, dehorning, loading, medical operations, vaccinations and hoof care..."

The word "dehorning" is a link that brings you to a wikipedia page about Horns, which surprised me. When I clicked it I was interested in learning about dehorning, but I had to do a search page for myself (which was problematic as entering "dehorning" did not bring me directly to the article). As there is already a link elsewhere on the page that leads to the Horns article, I think the link should be changed to the Dehorning article.

I would do this myself, but I don't know how and I'm not really willing to search through wikipedia helpfiles to figure it out. I'm someone who comes here to learn, not to edit the articles. I fear if I got into that habit it would become an obsession and I'm avoiding falling into that. I'd just like to point this out to someone who considers his or herself an editor. Thanks in advance. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.42.120.130 (talk • contribs) 00:22, 2 October 2009

Try it now. Eeekster (talk) 23:22, 1 October 2009 (UTC)

Can a cow be a boy? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.3.169.28 (talk) 02:44, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

Lead Picture too Racy

This is like putting a picture of Heidi Klum at the head of the "Woman" article. Use a generic representative cow in a generic representative farmer's field--granted we all do enjoy the titillation, but this sexy moo-monster here in is pushing things too far for a serious article.--137.99.95.33 (talk) 21:09, 29 October 2009 (UTC)

Disagree. Lead photo is fine. If generic representation of average cow were used it would likely be in extreme confinement or feedlot. I don't understand Heidi Klum reference or why this picture would be too racy. Bob98133 (talk) 14:06, 30 October 2009 (UTC)
I think User:137.99.95.33 may be having their little joke. It's a fine picture showing a lovely cow, and illustrates the article very well. I do have a bull or two who'd find her expression very inviting, but I think most of us humans can resist her lovely eyelashes perfectly well. Richard New Forest (talk) 16:05, 30 October 2009 (UTC)
I think Bossy's safe there on the lead and can chew her cud in peace. Out here in Montana, we claim Wyoming is the land where men are men and sheep are nervous, but NO ONE worries about the cows -- in either state! LOL! Montanabw(talk) 21:07, 30 October 2009 (UTC)

Env impact, again

I'm not sure I'm convinced by the env impact section. The report itself says (exec summary) that they produce 9% of CO2, but that is mostly from deforestation William M. Connolley (talk) 11:19, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

And "they" are "livestock" or sometimes "ruminants". It's not especially clear what is attributable to cattle and what comes out of the several other poop machines in the modern eatery - sheep, chicken, pigs, etc. At least last time I read it. And somewhere or other is a report that indicts cattle fed poor fodder and/or grazed on poor land for just as much excess meth emission as feedlot cattle fed a grain-heavy diet. This is the remains of a battle from a year or two ago, a pro-farmer vs. anti-feedlot faction set up camp for a while. Franamax (talk) 11:43, 2 January 2010 (UTC)


The problem is not Methane or any other naturally occurring gas; the problem is from Carbon Monoxide a gas that does not occur naturally and nature does not have no way of dealing with it.

The other Problem is due to the pavement on nearly all the roadways in the world causing a heater coil effect compounded by the amount of hot motors and Smoke stacks.

Heifer

"A young female before she has had a calf of her own[12] and is under three years of age is called a heifer (pronounced /ˈhɛfər/, "heffer").[13]"

What's a young female before she has had a calf of her own and is over three years of age? 75.118.170.35 (talk) 19:01, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

Once she is too old to be called a heifer, she is just a cow. The change in terminology does not coincide with her birthday, but is influenced by her appearance and condition. If she still looks young and vital like a heifer should, she likely will be called a heifer for some time during her fourth year if she still has not calved. —Stephen (talk) 19:15, 20 January 2010 (UTC)
No, that's not what technical British usage would be. A female who has not calved will remain a heifer indefinitely (we have one of 12 years old!). This is the definition used by the UK agriculture ministry – although in looser contexts such an older animal would very likely be called a cow, if only because it's not necessarily obvious to the eye whether she's ever calved. If I wanted to distinguish one from a younger heifer I'd probably call her a "mature heifer" or something similar. Does that ref support the "under four years old" definition? If not, is there another for it? Richard New Forest (talk) 20:27, 20 January 2010 (UTC)~
A heifer has been defined in the Macquarie Dictionary as: "a cow that has not produced a calf and is under three years of age" - older females are known as cows. Sometimes, too, they classified as (females) showing not more than 6 permanent incisors.Cgoodwin (talk) 02:37, 21 January 2010 (UTC)
Here's some from the USA:
  1. Purdue University (East coast, USA) uses the same: "A female of the cattle species less than three years of age that has not borne a calf."
  2. The various online dictionaries say some version of "A young cow, especially one that has not yet given birth to a calf."
  3. The Cooperative Extension Service is sort of the "official" voice of agriculture (next to the USDA) and one state-level extension agents has answered the question as follows: [2] (Idaho extension agent) "I don't know if we have a definition when she is consider a cow and not a heifer, but this is my classification: A female bovine at birth is called a heifer calf. If she is retained as a potential female that will be part of the cow herd, she is called a replacement heifer. After she has given birth to her first calf -- usually at about 2-years of age -- she is called a cow."
My question there a separate term anywhere for a "barren" cow..i.e. one of obvious inferility? Montanabw(talk) 06:32, 21 January 2010 (UTC)
I'm not aware of any term to describe infertile female cattle unless they have been spayed or are a freemartin.Cgoodwin (talk) 08:20, 21 January 2010 (UTC)
Hamburger? :) Although Richard NF proves me wrong just above, domestic cows either reproduce or get eaten for a living. Franamax (talk) 09:02, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

Yes, our herd is unusual, because one of its main uses is conservation grazing. Non-breeders are useful for that (especially for rough sites where a calf might be at risk), so we generally keep them – mature heifers and also cows who've given up calving. In a conventional beef or dairy production system yes, these would certainly be culled and eaten, and historically they would have been too – but probably commonly used for draught first, as male oxen were. Interestingly that old heifer I mentioned has developed a shape quite like a male ox (and she's definitely a heifer not a freemartin). A non-breeder in Britain is generally called a barrener.

Until a few years ago the UK government had a subsidy scheme for suckler cows: it paid out for cows but you could only claim up to a certain proportion of heifers. They kept strictly to the calving-only definition for this with no reference to age. Richard New Forest (talk) 14:15, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

Hamburger! LOL! Richard is not alone, there's an animal rescue place here in beef country that has been known to occasionally take in the occasional pet cow someone got so attached to that they didn't want them to go to the packing house. They only have one or two, but... Anyway gang, I guess it's fair to say that if a heifer gets to three with no calf, Franamax is right, no need for a term because it occurs so rarely... (speaking of rare, ummm, rare steak...ummm...yum...) Montanabw(talk) 05:32, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

Carbon cycle

Can some recognition be given to the fact that cows eat grass? grass absorbs CO2 from the atmosphere as it grows, 25 tons of CO2 absorbed per hectare of grass [3]. It is an important input into the environmental debate. We need some awareness of the Carbon Cycle as it applies to cattle. It's not as though they are burning fossil fuel and emitting CO2 that was laid down in enormous quantities millions of years ago. The word 'sustainable' comes to mind. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.45.185.126 (talk) 12:32, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

Not as simple as that. Firstly, yes, the grass does absorb a lot of CO2 as it grows – but this is soon released again, either by respiration of the cattle (most of it), or by our own respiration once we've eaten the cattle. Secondly, grass is commonly fertilised with nitrogen fertilisers derived from oil, and fossil fuels are also used for making hay or silage and then transporting, storing and processing the meat: therefore there is a considerable fossil fuel input.

Considerable? please give some reliable facts to allow a comparison to be made. Perhaps the suggested carbon input from fossil-fuel used in the farming is negligible compared to the carbon absorbed by growing the cattle-feed. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.45.185.126 (talk) 14:17, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

Those are all facts already – you must mean reliable refs for them. Not sure where to find those, but this is basic carbon cycle science and there must be text books stuffed with this material.
As I've said, there is no net carbon absorbed by growing cattle feed, so any fossil fuels used can only be significant in comparison. Whether the total amount of fossil fuels used is significant compared with other fuel uses depends on how intensive the grass-growing is. Cattle forage and fodder can be grown with virtually no fossil inputs – for example in extensive systems grazing natural habitats (as it happens, how my own farming is done...). It can also be grown using intensive methods, with heavy use of fertiliser and cultivation to produce short-rotation grass leys, grain, maize silage etc. I know that such arable techniques when used for human food can use as much or more fossil energy than they produce in food energy. Probably not quite so much for cattle feed (as cattle eat more of the plant than we do), but still very significant indeed. Richard New Forest (talk) 19:43, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

If there are facts it should be possible to quote references. Opinions do not become facts by being stated forcefully, but I agree there is no net carbon absorbed by growing cattle feed if it is fed to cattle. By the same token there is no net carbon released into the atmosphere by the process either. That was my point - it's a cycle and therefore sustainable. Farmers and others may choose to use fossil fuel because it happens to be the cheapest alternative at present, but it is not an essential component of cattle farming. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.45.185.126 (talk) 09:54, 9 February 2010 (UTC)

Facts do not cease being facts just because they are not reffed! I hope I'm not only offering opinions, but trying to spread knowledge... Yes, refs should be possible, but I'm afraid I can't think where to find them (I learnt all this far too long ago!), and I haven't time to look: someone else will have to do it. I will have a think about it though.
Yes, you're right: all else being equal (and leaving aside methane production), cattle farming itself will be carbon-neutral. Intensive cattle farming methods are not by a long chalk, and nor are clearance of forest or drainage of bogs for cattle farming or indeed for any other reason. Richard New Forest (talk) 16:42, 9 February 2010 (UTC)
On methane, it's a fact that cattle produce it and that it is a greenhouse gas. Another fact is that it decomposes into CO2 and water in two years. Current information is that a cow produces 0.3 to 0.5 kg of methane per day, equivalent to 6-10 kg of CO2 in greenhouse effect. The cow consumes 7 kg of carbon per day in eating grass, which is the carbon contained in 25 kg of CO2 [3]. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.45.185.126 (talk • contribs) 14:34, 21 February 2010
  1. ^ E.O. Wilson, The Future of Life, 2003, Vintage Books, 256 pages ISBN 067976811
  2. ^ Rimas, A. & Fraser E. (2008) "Beef: The Untold Story of How Milk Meat, and Muscle Shaped the World." New York: William Morrow ISBN-13: 978-0061353840
  3. ^ [1]
We ALL produce methane, in people we Americans call the production of digestion-related methane a "fart." More to the point is the difference between cattle allowed to live and eat on grass the way cattle are biologically designed to live and eat, which they have done since the species evolved into its present form, versus the role of artificial feedlot operations and a heavy corn-based diet, which is not entirely healthy for the cattle (to put it mildly), causing digestive issues (and yes, more cow farts, if you will). Just like people who eat nothing but, say, potato chips and beer -- gain weight, get gassy, produce more methane, contribute noxious emissions... The point is that the cow itself is not inherently a problem, it's the choices humans make to create concentrated, unhealthy, artificial situations to fatten cattle for market that create not only increases in methane due to unhealthy feeding, but also creates water pollution due to feedlot runoff, and is no doubt contributing to the development of antibiotic resistant bacteria due to the presence of drugs in cattle feed to ward off the inevitable sickness that would otherwise occur when cattle are forced to live in such conditions as the typical industrial feedlot. OK, end of rant. Now back to lurker mode. Montanabw(talk) 04:30, 22 February 2010 (UTC)
Well of course it's human use of cows that creates the problem, if we had no compelling use for them there would be far fewer loafing around. The problem boils down to the fact that we like to eat meat and there's a lot of "we" on the planet, so we need a lot of meat. The methane issue is a bit of a red herring given its relatively short half-life - there is simply a standing inventory of methane being continuously converted to CO2, only the size of that inventory changes with husbandry practice and number of cows. Corn-feeding and grazing on poor fodder both increase the methane inventory, but over time cause no "accumulation".
The real issue is the trophic conversion ratio, or in other words, how much resource is required to produce a pound of hamburger multiplied by the number of pounds of hamburger we all want to eat - combined with the profit incentive. Cows grazed on quality grassland will indeed be carbon-neutral over time, but that's not how the world works. Instead, intensive farming practices are used and almost all these consume fossil fuels in the process. Even the need for hay in winter is going to force you to put diesel into the tractor in summer. Franamax (talk) 13:42, 22 February 2010 (UTC)
It does not 'force' you to put diesel in the tractor, that is a choice you make based on the current glut of cheap oil sold at low prices :) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.45.185.126 (talk) 15:02, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Copied discussion

See below for related discussion which I had not got around to copying from my user page, covering the above points in more detail, and also the effect on atmospheric methane. The discussion arose after this diff and preceding edits. Richard New Forest (talk) 14:12, 1 February 2010 (UTC)


These are interesting and perhaps important opinions and I wonder if there are any facts to back them up? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.45.185.126 (talk) 13:02, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

See reply above. Can we keep discussion there please? Richard New Forest (talk) 19:43, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

"Head of"

Does the word "head" actually add any meaning to the process of naming numbers of bovines? Is there a difference between "I have about 200 cattle" and "I have about 200 head of cattle"? - Vianello (Talk) 02:28, 6 June 2010 (UTC)

Nope, but it's way easier to count heads than to count legs and then divide by four! LOL! It's a term of art. Where I live, one will hear "I have about 200 head," the noun "cattle" being implied. Or even "I run about 200 head," even though "run" is a complete misnomer for critters who mostly stand around and eat. Montanabw(talk) 03:51, 6 June 2010 (UTC)
Got it. I was just curious! Thanks for the info. I kind of wonder if the term really needs to be in the article considering it just adds a pointless one or two words. Not that it's exactly causing devastating harm by being in it either. - Vianello (Talk) 19:50, 6 June 2010 (UTC)

Dilemma?

I'm curious why "Singular terminology dilemma" is a dilemma? :) It seems like a bit of an overstatement. Any other opinions?--Rockfang (talk) 02:24, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

There was an endless discussion over this a while back. That title seemed to settle it. Montanabw(talk) 22:23, 4 August 2010 (UTC)
Could you please share a link to this discussion? I searched the archives using the search box and came up with no results.--Rockfang (talk) 22:58, 4 August 2010 (UTC)
I think a lot of it predates 2009 and some of the discussion was on people's talk pages. I don't think that there is a huge moral attachment to the phrase "singular terminology dilemma" but it seemed to work. Montanabw(talk) 21:54, 5 August 2010 (UTC) Follow up: Looks like the subheading was changed in March 2008 but kept essentially the same concept. I think the heading first appeared around October of 2007 in the context of a general cleanup of the terminology sections. I can't recall who put it there (wasn't me, I don't think, unless someone else suggested it and I made the edit). So, in essence, that's what we have. No one seemed upset at the time it arrived (we were too busy working over the article content itself, I guess...) and it's been there in various forms ever since. Montanabw(talk) 22:44, 5 August 2010 (UTC)
Thank you for replying and thank you for the information.--Rockfang (talk) 02:16, 6 August 2010 (UTC)

Economic section... beef = cows doesn't it?

It currently reads "The international trade in beef for 2000 was over $30 billion and represented only 23 percent of world beef production. (Clay 2004)." Beef is defined as the meat of cows. Should that be world meat production? Or does this mean that the international trade was 23% of what people eat, the rest of their cows domestic? Dream Focus 19:56, 30 July 2010 (UTC)

I'd have thought that international trade was trade between countries, and therefore excludes trade within countries. Are you thinking of global trade...? Needs clarification either way. Richard New Forest (talk) 20:03, 30 July 2010 (UTC)
Either way, "beef" is correct and "meat" is incorrect, as meat includes pork, mutton, chicken... Montanabw(talk) 20:35, 30 July 2010 (UTC)
Beef is anything that use to be part of a cattle. So the good old 100% pure beef can mean hoof, horns, bones, nose, ears and anus. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.219.102.142 (talk) 11:54, 10 August 2010 (UTC)

Bulling (cattle)

I did not write the article bulling. I merely fixed it up after it was written. Someone else has enlarged and rewritten it and moved to a different name. Please do not jump to faulty conclusion regarding the article. I added it to See also because bulling has to do with the topic of cattle and should be included here. Please read bulling before you dismiss it. Xtzou (Talk) 12:42, 19 May 2010 (UTC)

Sorry, Xtzou. It was unclear if you were the anonymous editor who created the article. Nonetheless, all edits since the creation and up until yesterday have been by you. The only reference for that article is to a commercial "Breeding for profit" website, which does not meet WP:RS criteria. Based solely on that, the bulling article should be a candidate for speedy deletion. Using an unreliable article as a See Also, seems silly to me. If the bulling article had a real reference, I would have no objection to its inclusion in the cattle article. I see others have been working on that, so perhaps Bulling article will someday have a real ref. Bob98133 (talk) 16:02, 19 May 2010 (UTC)
If Bulling (cattle) is a good article, it should be linked here; if not, no point. I therefore suggest we move this discussion to Talk:Bulling (cattle), where I have replied to the points made above. Richard New Forest (talk) 21:23, 19 May 2010 (UTC)
Merge the salient points and then dump it. Next thing you know there will be 10,000 stub articles on the minutae of various mildly odd behaviors in every known land mammal.Montanabw(talk) 01:44, 20 May 2010 (UTC)
Agree. Small mention in this article, dump bulling article. Bob98133 (talk) 12:46, 20 May 2010 (UTC)

DOn`t dump the bulling article. Simply recongnize that `bulling`is a slang term to descrbe estrus in heifers and cows. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Bellshillredangus (talk • contribs) 11:07, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

Greenhouse gases

Cattle do release greenhouse gas. That is a fact. CH4 emmissions and CO2 released is quantifiable. Processes are being researched and implemented to enhance efficiency and reduce carbon impact. Interesting paper: Carbon Credit Potential of Reducing Age at Slaughter in Beef Cattle. Basarab, Baron & Darling —Preceding unsigned comment added by Bellshillredangus (talk • contribs) 11:05, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

See extensive discussion above. Cattle rearing themselves does not in fact produce net CO2 itself. It is intensive cattle rearing that produces CO2, from the associated intensive arable farming. Cattle do produce CH4: so do wild ruminants, termites, forest soils and various other natural sources; I don't know how the amounts compare.
Reduction of slaughter age is, in my opinion, a red herring. Yes, quicker intensive cattle rearing reduces emissions compared with slower intensive rearing, because it produces emissions for a shorter time. However, I think it misses the point. However quickly intensive cattle rearing is done, it will always be extremely wasteful of energy and carbon, and rearing on grass without fertilisers uses far less (potentially no) carbon, although it takes far longer than standard intensive rearing. Intensive cattle are usually killed at 18 to 20 months; I kill mine at 30 or even 48 months – but I get proper red beef, not the pink squishy stuff sold in supermarkets. The carbon footprint is minimal, and they do it on land which could not be used to grow crops. I think the solution is to rear fewer cattle better, and to keep arable land for human food. Richard New Forest (talk) 18:24, 6 December 2010 (UTC)
I agree with Richard's position. The problem is not the creature, it's the management. The bigger issue is clearly a political one: http://www.motherearthnews.com/sustainable-farming/sustainable-agriculture-cows-feed-zm0z10zrog.aspx The production of corn (maize to you Brits) for both animal feed and for ethanol happens to leave a huge carbon footprint and also raises significant issues with runoff pollution from fertilizers, etc... the Gulf of Mexico already had a "dead zone" from Mississippi runoff long before the Shell Oil spill. :-P Montanabw(talk) 20:10, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

The problem is not Methane or any other naturally occurring gas; the problem is from Carbon Monoxide CO a gas that does not occur naturally and nature does not have a way of dealing with it.

The other Problem is due to the pavement on nearly all the roadways in the world causing a heater coil effect compounded by the amount of hot motors and Smoke stacks.

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