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
Domesticated cows have never lived in the wild. Their pre-domestication ancestors were large herd animals called aurochs. Their behavior wasn’t unlike wild buffalo or other such large herd animals.
If you let domesticated cows roam free, they likely wouldn’t survive very long.
There are specific breeds of cattle that are semi-wild today. If you go out west in the US, there are herds being raised for beef that essentially free roam public land and are periodically checked on. Ranchers might lose 1-3:100 to predators, injuries or just plain getting lost but overall they go all summer living this way. Of course they are susceptible to weather and increasingly wildlife fires.
That’s evolution for ya.
Cows evolved into their current form through a lot of breeding. Giving lots of milk became the primary determining factor of survival. But giving birth unattended, not so much.
These beasts are no more wild animals than Chihuahuas.
Most animals we know today are nothing like they used to be.
Cats, dogs, horses, cows, chickens, etc are all domesticated and bred for traits we find positive, such as size for meat production, quantity of eggs, or how docile they are.
A good example of this is with swine. If you look at Texas they have a feral hog problem, but that is a result of domesticated pigs escaping and start reverting to their natural state. They grow tusks, hair, and get aggressive in about a month.
A modern cow is basically a human creation – through generations of selective breeding they’re hugely different to natural breeds, and they’d pretty useless in the wild for the reasons you’ve given and others.
Herd animals can be dumb. But they are very powerful and dangerous as a herd especially when they are fast, large and dumb. They also have bulls that are separated in farms from cows usually. Bulls are known for being extremely violent especially when they are in mating season. The bulls tendencies are still on display today in events.
The are wild cattle in the Patagonia Argentina, here is a post about them:
https://www.reddit.com/r/megafaunarewilding/s/WesHq13H9C
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