Everything I hear how cow farmers need to take care of their stock baffles me more and more how these were able to survive for so long
A cow needs to be milked every certain period to avoid infections, bruising, death
A cow needs help with the birth of a calf, as its sometimes a process which cant be done by a cow itself
A cow builds up gasses in their stomachs, requiring punctures to avoid sickness, death
And not to mention the parasites, specific diets, and maybe some other things I wouldn’t know about
In: Biology
Cows today are not what the species was thousands of years ago. We domesticated them. That means we selectively bred them to make them more like what we want them to be. We have made them *need* us as a result. This is the usual result of domestication. Sheep are another example, they can straight up die of heat stroke or other issues if they aren’t shorn regularly.
If you want to know what cattle were like before humans, look at water buffalo. And yes, lots and lots of them die in the wild! But enough survive to keep the species going.
dairy cows that you see and know today are not the same as they existed a hundred years ago. through selective breeding we have changed them from their “ancestors” (much like we have done with wolves to dogs)
enhacing some traits can cause pitfalls elsewhere as we mess with genetics through this selective breeding process
Wild cattle were called aurochs and they’ve been extinct for a long, long time. The cattle we have today is probably as close to the auroch as a chihuahua is to the gray wolf.
Bison, Cape buffalo, Gaur are all doing just fine surviving in the wild. Bovines have a fairly successful survival strategy going on, it’s just that domestic cows were bred to be, well, domestic.
Strawberries 600 years ago were the size of the nail on your little finger. Much the same as cows, they have become more suited to human needs in the passing years.
We have spent the past several thousand years *changing* cows, until they are what you see today.
The animals you see today *are not the same* as the animals before we domesticated them.
This applies to literally every single domesticated animal. And also to every farmed food, too.
Long horn cattle lived wild for several hundred years. They were the dependents of domesticated cattle released by the Spanish conquestadores. The quickly evolved everything they needed to survive. The same thing happens with feral hogs.
have you heard of scottish highland cattle? it is an old breed that had to live without much human help, they are smaller, live well with very few feed, they don’t need help when giving birth. i could imagine they are candidates for a cow breed that can actually still survive in the wild.
have you heard of scottish highland cattle? it is an old breed that had to live without much human help, they are smaller, live well with very few feed, they don’t need help when giving birth. i could imagine they are candidates for a cow breed that can actually still survive in the wild.
have you heard of scottish highland cattle? it is an old breed that had to live without much human help, they are smaller, live well with very few feed, they don’t need help when giving birth. i could imagine they are candidates for a cow breed that can actually still survive in the wild.
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