Fun Facts
About Cattle

Cattle

A male is called a bull or a steer.
A female is called a heifer until she has a calf then she is called a cow.
A baby is called a calf.
An adult steer used as a beast of burden is called an Ox.
Gestation period is 9 months.
Full size adult cattle weigh 900-2000 lbs.
Cattle are cud chewing animals or RUMINANTS with four stomachs. They only have lower teeth – and a hard dental pad rather than teeth on top. To eat they wrap their tongues around grass and pull it.
Cattle eat hay, grain and grass. A full size cow will eat about 25 lbs of hay PER DAY and drink 30 gallons of water PER DAY.
There are about 800 different breeds of cattle. Some are raised for milk and others for beef.
Ruminating is the act of coughing up their food to re-chew. Also called “chewing their cud”.
Cattle spend about 8 hours a day chewing their cud. And then swallowing it into the next stomach for further digestion.
Cows are nearly color blind. They can only see variations of the colors yellow and blue - and can’t see the color red at all.
Cows have an incredible sense of smell – much better than humans and even better than dogs.
Cows are very social animals. They live in small herds of 20-30 animals and form close friendships with other animals in their herd. Licking each other reinforces relationships between the animals and has a relaxing effect