Hi I’m Mike.
Cow, calf, heifer, heiferette, springer, yearling, stocker, bull, bullock, maverick, steer, freemartin,
polled, beef and dairy, these are some of the sacred words of ranching and farming cattle.
Today we are talking about terminology and what they mean, where the words come from
and why we use them… on our Wyoming life.
If this is your first time here, welcome and thanks for coming to explore the ranch life
with us, please subscribe for more from the ranch including gardening, ranch style cooking
and everything in-between.
Cattle, or even cows, is a very broad term, you don’t even need to be talking about
the cows on the ranch to use it, the word cow could be referring to a female alligator,
a camel, or even an elephant, bull is the same way, a male dolphin, or a dinosaur if
you can believe it.
And calf could be a baby giraffe, hippopotamus or a rhino.
Luckily, I don’t have to deal with keeping all that straight, even though Lincoln is
convinced we should have a dinosaur around, I guess, just to keep things interesting.
So we are just dealing with cattle, how complicated can it be really…. when we first came here
to the ranch, dropping everything and starting over, I can tell you that I knew there were
cows and bulls and calves, but that was about the limit of my knowledge.
I was in for a rude awakening the first time someone started talking to me about heifers
or stockers and yearlings.
I nodded and smiled, pretended I knew what they were talking about and realized I had
a lot of learning to do.
I still don’t claim to know it all, but when I smile and nod as someone is talking
to me about their polled cattle or the difference between a Holstein and a Hereford bull, at
least I know what they are talking about horns and different breeds.
Everyday is a day to learn something around here and I think that’s one of the reasons
people are drawn to this life, no day is ever the same as the last.
You learn to solve problems you’ve never faced and the way you solve it isn’t going
to be the same way your neighbor may have but you figure it out.
This may sound totally sacrilegious but farming and ranching is much like a religion to a
lot of people in the industry, some even call it a call from god.
I’m not so sure about that, my ranching career started with a call from Erin, as I
was sitting at my desk asking me what I thought about going to Wyoming and working on her
stepdads ranch, but then again, we had only been married for 4 months, so in a way, the
boss was calling.
And as with most religions if you know the language then you belong, I guess it doesn’t
even have to be a religion.
If you go to Starbucks and order a large, I swear they look at you like you just dropped
off a wagon somewhere, Triple, Venti, Soy, no foam latte.
I don’t even know what that means, but I know the words.
Extra hot caramel macchiato upside down, just sounds messy.
So when I started, just a lot of you, I knew the words but didn’t know what they meant.
And today, we start with the basics.
Cattle, or more commonly cows.
Bovines, most commonly classified as Bos Taurus, but don’t worry about that, it won’t be
on the test.
Cattle are commonly raised as livestock for meat and as dairy animals for milk and other
dairy products.
But only 60% of a cow is harvested for food, the other 40% ends up in places like lipstick
and jet fuel.
Bovine insulin from the pancreas is used to make insulin injections for diabetics, cartilage
helps make medicine for people who suffer from osteoarthritis and lungs are used in
blood thinners like heparin.
Cow bones and hides are used to create gelatin that gives texture to foods like marshmallows,
caramels and gummies.
Around 10,500 years ago cattle were originally domesticated in Turkey and now there are some
1.4 billion cattle in the world.
In general, when it comes to cattle terminology, they are pretty consistent across the globe,
with a few differences in definitions.
All cattle are cows, don’t feel bad about calling a bull or an un casterated male a
cow.
They don’t care.
Even though their owners might and that might say more about the owner than anything.
The language we use is, like anything else, a tool to keep types of animals, sex, and
stage of development straight.
Its easy to get wrapped up in the terms and forget they are all cows.
So we have our bull, a male cow, completely intact and ready to breed.
A bull that is casterated is called a steer.
Bulls calves on the ranch are casterated at branding and we do this to produce an easier
to work with steer calf.
Bulls like to fight and especially when the hit puberty and casterating them calms their
tempers, also renders them unable to breed and keeps them from trying to breed their
sisters in the field.
In addition, casterated steers will grow better and faster leading to a bigger calf at sale
time.
Keep back steers to grain finish for farmers market
A few other terms that refer to male cows is a bullock which refers to a young bull
as well as heifer bull which we use to label a bull under 3 years of age that is normally
used to breed cows that are ready to have their first calf, they are smaller, just like
the cows and put less stress on the cows during breeding, both physically and I imagine mentally.
Another type of animal that we have out here is a lead steer, he is a casterated bull that
was not raised to butcher, but was raised to live with the cows.
He was hand fed and raised and helps us move cows around as the cows will follow him and
he usually has no problem following a bucket full of goodies.
Cows are the money maker on the ranch, they are main producers and when it comes to cows
the terms start to get a bit more confusing.
For us a Cow on the ranch is an adult female who has had a calf, she is then considered
to be part of our breeding herd.
80% of the female cows on the ranch fall into this category.
They know the routine, the have been around long enough to be good moms and in a weird
kind of way, we trust them.
A young female, before she has had a calf of her own and is under three years of age
is called a heifer, and a young female that has only had one calf is occasionally called
a first-time heifer.
Heifers who haven’t had a calf require more babysitting than cows, consider them just
out of their teens.
They are more adventurous, they tend to get into more trouble and when it comes time to
have their first calf they don’t have a clue what they are doing.
Most cows and heifers have that mothering instinct, but heifers, still need to learn
how to take care of and care for a calf.
Its not uncommon for a heifer to wander off and leave her calf and forget where she left
it, or refuse to care for her calf at all.
Also, heifers, because they are first time moms, tend to have more trouble during the
calving process itself and more often require human intervention when then cant get a calf
out.
Calves are young cattle of both sexes until they are weaned from their moms, then in some
areas they are referred to as weaners until they are a year old, in other areas, they
may be known as feeder calves or simply feeders.
After that they are referred to as yearlings, between one and two years of age.
Other words that you will hear us toss around here are springers, cows that are close to
calving.
Stocker calves that are purchased when they are weaned and wintered on the ranch and then
sold again, kind of a quick turn around income.
Polled cattle, which are cows without horns, which we have here on the ranch.
Maverick, would be any type of cow that isn’t branded.
And a free martin, which is a female twin of a bull that becomes infertile due to the
sharing of blood supply with her brother in utero.
Sounds made by cows are generally called moos also we refer to it as lowing, but there are
a number of sound that are made by cattle, including bawling and bellowing.
Bawling is most common for cows after weaning of a calf, and bellowing is the sound a bull
makes when he is ready to get to work.
When we first decided to make a terminology video, we didn’t know how it would turn
out, I honestly didn’t think that I had enough material to make a whole video out
of just cow terminology and anticipated having to venture into the entire ranch and talk
about fencing or machinery, pigs and maybe even chickens.
As it turns out, the way we talk about and refer to our cows is even more complicated
than I thought and I’m sure that I have left stuff out.
But I hope that this video gives you a better idea of the language of the ranch, at least
cows and helps you feel closer and more connected to everything we do here.
In the end, no matter how complicated a person wants to make it, they are cows and they depend
on us for everything, if I opened the gates tomorrow and let them go free, well not only
would I get a huge ticket from the sheriff’s department but I guarantee that a majority
of them would be back tomorrow, waiting for me to come out and feed them, make sure they
have water and that’s ok.
They depend on us as much as we depend on them.
I think it’s a good trade.
Coming up this week on the ranch, Tuesday join me as we tackle the project list and
together we get more done, before you know it, its going to be calving season and we
are going to be busier than a mosquito at a nudist camp, so we have to get going on
getting as much done as possible on that list.
Also, Erin will have a new video out as she starts seedlings that will be going in the
high tunnel.
The work never stops, and that’s ok.
If you are new here thanks for joining us and hit subscribe and come explore the ranch
life with all of us, we have an awesome community and I appreciate every single one of you.
Find us on Facebook for content you can’t find anywhere else and until next time have
a great week and thanks for joining us, in our Wyoming life.