What is the difference between cow and heifer

A steer is a castrated male bovine. Steers are less aggressive than bulls. Steers are normally raised for meat. Another way to tell the difference between a bull and a steer is to check if the bovine has testes.

Sometimes, it can be difficult to distinguish between steers and heifers. Heifers have a vulva beneath their tails, while steers do not. A cow is a mature female bovine that has had at least one calf. Cows have larger hips and thicker middles. Compared to bulls, they look feminine. Cows should have a slightly angular body shape, lean-looking shoulders and a broad chest, according to University of Arkansas Division of Agriculture.

Heifers are young female cattle that have not yet borne calves. Heifers can be used for breeding, and they can also be raised for beef. Heifers are bred once they reach maturity about 12 to 14 months , according to University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Once a heifer has a calf, she becomes a cow.

Heifers are similar in appearance to cows, but lack the mature characteristics of cows such as prominent hips and thick middles. Both baby male and female cattle are referred to as calves. A side view of the animal will offer you the best view to determine the gender. Cows have udders; bulls have scrotum. Steers will not have testes like bulls. Heifers have teats but no visible udder like cows do. For instance, Angus cattle are typically black, Jersey cattle are brown and Holsteins are black and white.

Up-to-date agriculture news in your inbox! Katie… please help me with these 3??? In my youth I did understood that 16 to 18 month was the time. So, thank you! Well Mr. Therefore, I found this article very interesting. You have a typo in the next to last paragraph: heifers DO have teats but no visible udder like cows do. Makes me laugh thinking about it. Thank you for clarifying that for people. There are a lot of folks new to the industry.

There are new folks to the industry all the time. Thank you for your comment, Kristine. We hope that this information will be useful for those individuals who are new to the ag industry!

When I taught in college and industry, I had a devil of a time getting facts across to students. Their retention and interest were like a colander or sieve. I asked if they planned on walking in their own back yards.

Thank you for your comment. We hope that this information will be useful to those outside of the agriculture industry, as well as to those new to farming. You should correct a couple statements about Bulls. Bulls are not castrated. Certainly the primary purpose for Bulls are breeding, but their meat is in demand for hamburg or extender in others meats to reduce cost.

What is meant by that statement is that bull calves are not castrated because of their desired traits for breeding. I apologize for the misunderstanding. Katie, I raise Texas Longhorn cattle and after several years of being ask if my Longhorn steers have any calves this year, the answer is yep. Your a brave person to try and explain this and , After you get this all settled try to explain why some breeds , bulls and cows both have horns and some breeds neither have horns.

Wow, just too many choices, not easy raising cattle. Here in southeast michigan, we have a boyscout ranch called D-A, that raised a herd of longhorns. I still laugh every time I hear the story of the city kids visiting the farm. One young boy asked the farmer why the cow did not have horns. The farmer was gracious and patient. Sometimes the horns are removed for safety reasons.

Or, the horns may not have grown and developed fully yet. And these drums sound different depending on whether it has a cow a bull, a steer or a calf skin on it.

And I appreciate that, now I can inform other drummers who may not know so they can be more informed too. I never can understand how and why educators criticize people for not knowing what they think others should already know. If they knew all these things then they the teachers would have to maybe milk cows or build drums for a living.

Seasoned Citizen, do you know the differences between the three different types of congas drums and or thier respective names? Before you go googling that is. This is a great detailed account of these types of bovine.

There are two big reasons this happens at six months of age. First, at six months the mother no longer produces milk. However, as he grows, he slowly starts to get more nutrients from the grass verses milk. We can either 1 sell them to a cattle sale barn, 2 keep them for future Clover Meadows Beef sales, or 3 keep them to be future breeding cows the Mom cows at our farm.

Our best calves are hand-picked to be Clover Meadows Beef, which is the beef we sell as quarter, half and whole beef. These calves will spend the next 12 to 16 months on grass until they are around lbs. To give you an idea of the whole timeline, if we breed a cow in the Summer of , it will give birth in the Spring of The calf will be weaned in the Fall of , and then it eats grass and grows for months.

Hopefully, this helps explain why all farmers have a limited quantity of beef to sell. Typically, between three and six months of age, a bull calf is neutered and then it is known as a steer. By definition, a steer is a male animal that has been neutered.

The primary reason is because bull calves have a temper and they like to fight each other to establish dominance. This makes them very difficult to handle on a farm. Another big reason is because lower levels of testosterone in beef leads to higher quality grades and more consistent tenderness and marbling in beef.

Bulls have a very specific job and it comes around two times a year — when we let them in the field with the cows. One of our favorites is that scientific studies have shown that the bull will follow a cow in heat for about miles.

Like many cow-calf operations, we buy our bulls from someone that specializes in bulls. We could raise our own bulls on the farm after all, some of the calves born on are farm are male , but we choose not to. Therefore, if we want a calf that has leaner meat, we will let a leaner bull be in the field with those cows. Horns are fairly meaningless. Most male and female cattle have horns naturally, but these are very often burned off before they have a chance to grow.

The size of horns might be a clue to the breed of bovine, but not the gender. This term is more commonly used today to mean a novice or someone who is absolutely clueless. Knowing how to talk about cattle with people who know about cattle can help you to be taken seriously as you learn, e. It can also help you to get better deals and gain respect among folks who may be helpful to you as you learn your way around cattle keeping.

Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed. She was raised on a farm in rural Michigan. She is a mom of three who spends all her free time with her family and friends, her mare Joy, or just sipping her favorite cup of tea.

We try to help farmers better understand their animals; however, the content on this blog is not a substitute for veterinary guidance. Look at the size of that animal 3.

What about horns? Thanks for your knowledge.