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Mature female cattle are called cows and mature male cattle are bulls. Young female cattle are called heifers, young male cattle are oxen or bullocks, and castrated male cattle are known as steers. Cattle are commonly raised for meat, for dairy products, and for leather. As draft animals, they pull carts and farm implements.
An "intact" (i.e., not castrated) adult male is called a bull. A father bull is called a sire with reference to his offspring, such as in the herd book or purebred records. A female bovine that has not yet had a calf is known as a heifer. An adult female that has had her first calf (or second calf, depending upon regional usage) is called a cow ...
Most beef cattle are mated naturally, whereby a bull is released into a herd of cows approximately 55 days after the calving period, depending on the cows' body condition score (BCS). If it was a cow's first time calving, she will take longer to re-breed by at least 10 days. [4]
The female counterpart to a bull is a cow, while a male of the species that has been castrated is a steer, ox, [2] or bullock, although in North America, this last term refers to a young bull. [citation needed] Use of these terms varies considerably with area and dialect. Colloquially, people unfamiliar with cattle may also refer to steers and ...
In the English language, many animals have different names depending on whether they are male, female, young, domesticated, or in groups. The best-known source of many English words used for collective groupings of animals is The Book of Saint Albans , an essay on hunting published in 1486 and attributed to Juliana Berners . [ 1 ]
Female calves with dairy breeding may be kept as replacement cows for the dairy herd. If a replacement cow turns out to be a substandard producer of milk, she then goes to market and can be slaughtered for beef. Male calves can either be used later as a breeding bull or sold and used for veal or beef.
A freemartin or free-martin (sometimes martin heifer) is an infertile cow with masculinized behavior and non-functioning ovaries. [1] Phenotypically, the animal appears female, but various aspects of female reproductive development are altered due to acquisition of anti-Müllerian hormone from the male twin. [2]
The horns of females (cows) are smaller, at 27 to 64 cm (11 to 25 in) in length, and have a more upright shape. Both sexes have a short neck with a pronounced hump over the shoulders, although this is larger and more visible in males. [5] Males weigh 350 to 585 kg (772 to 1,290 lb), females weigh 225 to 255 kg (496 to 562 lb).