After that, they are referred to as yearlings or stirks if between one and two years of age. Young cattle of both sexes are called calves until they are weaned, then weaners until they are a year old in some areas in other areas, particularly with male beef cattle, they may be known as feeder calves or simply feeders.In all cattle species, a female twin of a bull usually becomes an infertile partial intersex, and is called a freemartin.An unbranded bovine of either sex is called a maverick in the US and Canada.
A wild, young, unmarked bull is known as a micky in Australia. An "intact" i.e., not castrated adult male is called a bull.An adult female that has had a calf or two, depending on regional usage is a cow.The terminology described here contrasts the differences in definition between the United Kingdom and other British-influenced parts of the world such as Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Ireland and the United States. In general, the same words are used in different parts of the world, but with minor differences in the definitions. Today, when used without any other qualifier, the modern meaning of "cattle" is usually restricted to domesticated bovines. "Wild cattle" may refer to feral cattle or to undomesticated species of the genus Bos. In older English sources such as the King James Version of the Bible, "cattle" refers to livestock, as opposed to "deer" which refers to wildlife. The Scots language singular is coo or cou, and the plural is "kye". This is the origin of the now archaic English plural, "kine". The plural cȳ became ki or kie in Middle English, and an additional plural ending was often added, giving kine, kien, but also kies, kuin and others. The word "cow" came via Anglo-Saxon cū plural cȳ, from Common Indo-European gʷōus genitive gʷowes = "a bovine animal", compare Persian: gav, Sanskrit: go-, Welsh: buwch. The term replaced earlier Old English feoh cattle, property, which survives today as fee. The word is a variant of chattel a unit of personal property and closely related to capital in the economic sense. Cattle originally meant movable personal property, especially livestock of any kind, as opposed to real property the land, which also included wild or small free-roaming animals such as chickens - they were sold as part of the land. It was borrowed from Anglo-Norman catel, itself from medieval Latin capitale principal sum of money, capital, itself derived in turn from Latin caput head. The bovine species per se is clearly dimorphic.Ĭattle did not originate as the term for bovine animals. in a herd, but that usage can be misleading as the speakers intent may indeed be just the females. The plural form cows is sometimes used colloquially to refer to both sexes collectively, as e.g. The singular, cow, technically means the female, the male being bull. The noun cattle which is treated as a plural and has no singular encompasses both sexes. Breeders have attempted to recreate cattle of similar appearance to aurochs by crossing traditional types of domesticated cattle, creating the Heck cattle breed. In historical times, its range became restricted to Europe, and the last known individual died in Mazovia, Poland, in about 1627. The aurochs originally ranged throughout Europe, North Africa, and much of Asia. However, cattle cannot be successfully hybridized with more distantly related bovines such as water buffalo or African buffalo. The hybrid origin of some types may not be obvious – for example, genetic testing of the Dwarf Lulu breed, the only taurine-type cattle in Nepal, found them to be a mix of taurine cattle, zebu, and yak. Hybrids such as the beefalo breed can even occur between taurine cattle and either species of bison, leading some authors to consider them part of the genus Bos, as well. Hybrid individuals and even breeds exist, not only between taurine cattle and zebu such as the sanga cattle, Bos taurus africanus, but also between one or both of these and some other members of the genus Bos – yaks the dzo or yattle, banteng, and gaur. These have been reclassified as one species, Bos taurus, with three subspecies: Bos taurus primigenius, Bos taurus indicus, and Bos taurus taurus.Ĭomplicating the matter is the ability of cattle to interbreed with other closely related species. The aurochs is ancestral to both zebu and taurine cattle. Cattle were originally identified as three separate species: Bos taurus, the European or "taurine" cattle including similar types from Africa and Asia Bos indicus, the zebu and the extinct Bos primigenius, the aurochs.