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Often, mentions of dams imply cows which will be kept in the herd for repeated breeding (as opposed to heifers or cows to be sold off sooner). A young female before she has had a calf of her own [2] and who is under three years of age is called a heifer (/ ˈ h ɛ f ər / HEF-ər). [3]
Coloration varies with breed; common colors are black, white, and red/brown, and some breeds are spotted or have mixed colors. [6] Bulls are larger than cows of the same breed by up to a few hundred kilograms. British Hereford cows, for example, weigh 600–800 kg (1,300–1,800 lb), while the bulls weigh 1,000–1,200 kg (2,200–2,600 lb). [7]
Cow–calf operations are widespread throughout beef-producing countries, [5] and the goal of a cow–calf operation is to produce young beef cattle, which are usually sold. True to the name, farm and ranch herds consist mostly of adult female cows, their calves, and young females, called heifers, which will produce calves once of breeding age.
A young bull of the Blonde d'Aquitaine breed. Japanese wagyu bull on a farm north of Kobe. Beef cattle are cattle raised for meat production (as distinguished from dairy cattle, used for milk production). The meat of mature or almost mature cattle is mostly known as beef.
Only a proportion of purebred heifers are needed to provide replacement cows, so often some of the cows in dairy herds are put to a beef bull to produce crossbred calves suitable for rearing as beef. Veal calves may be reared entirely on milk formula and killed at about 18 or 20 weeks as "white" veal, or fed on grain and hay and killed at 22 to ...
A Holstein Friesian bull A Charolais bull. A bull is an intact (i.e., not castrated) adult male of the species Bos taurus ().More muscular and aggressive than the females of the same species (i.e. cows proper), bulls have long been an important symbol in many religions, including for sacrifices.
Cattle breeds fall into two main types, which are regarded as either two closely related species, or two subspecies of one species. Bos indicus (or Bos taurus indicus) cattle, commonly called zebu, are adapted to hot climates and originated in the tropical parts of the world such as India, Sub-saharan Africa, China, and Southeast Asia.
In the first decades of twentieth century, the favored breed of zebu in Brazil was the Indubrasil or Indo-Brazilian, but from the 1960s onwards, Nelore became the primary breed of cattle in Brazil because of its hardiness, heat-resistance, and because it thrives on poor-quality forage and breeds easily, with the calves rarely requiring human ...