Just For Kids: Fun Facts About Cows

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Most people think that cows have four stomachs. That’s actually not true! Check out some other fun facts about cows here.
Source: www.thatsfarming.com

1. Most people think that cows have four stomachs. That’s actually not true. They have just one stomach with four chambers – rumen, reticulum, omasum and abomasum. This allows them to digest tough plant matter that would normally be indigestible.

2. Cow gestation lasts the same amount of time as human pregnancy, nine months.



3. In 2009, a team of researchers from the National Institutes of Health and the U.S. Department of agriculture announced that they’d successfully mapped the bovine genome. The results? Cattle have about 22,000 genes, and a whopping 80% of those are shared with humans. (Another 10% are shared with dogs and rodents.)

4. The color red doesn’t make bulls angry. In fact, cows are red-green colorblind! In bullfights, it’s the motion of the cape that draws the bull’s attention, not the color.

5. Moos aren’t the only sound cows make! Calves make a sound called bawling, while bulls bellow.

6. Cows can live more than 20 years (although dairy cows rarely live that long, and cows raised for meat are lucky to live to be 2 years old). If they have horns, you can guess their age by counting the number of rings.



7. The first cow to fly in an airplane was Elm Farm Olliein February 1930. (Incidentally also the first cow to be milked on an airplane.)

8. The average domestic cow sleeps only about four hours a day.

9. The first cows in the America arrived with Christopher Columbus on his second voyage.

10. Cows drink the equivalent of a bathtub full of water each day. Hey, it takes a lot to wash down 40 pounds of food!

11. Cows can walk up a flight of stairs, but once there, they can’t walk back down. Their knees just don’t bend the right way.

12. Holstein cows may not have hands, but they have their own unique “fingerprint.” No two cows have the same set of spots!



13. There are more than 800 different breeds of cattle around the world.

14. Cattle like to sleep close to their families, and sleeping arrangements are determined by individuals’ rank in the social hierarchy.

15. Cattle get excited when they solve problems. When faced with a challenge of finding out how to open a door to reach food, their heartbeat goes up, their brainwaves shows excitement, and some even jump into the air.

16. Cows are devotional mothers and are known to walk for miles to find their calves.

17. Cattle have an excellent sense of smell. They can detect odours up to five miles away. They can also hear both low and high frequency sounds beyond human capability.

18. Like humans, cows form close friendships and choose to spend much of their time with 2-4 preferred individuals. They also hold grudges for years and may dislike particular individuals.