Talk:Cattle

What's this page supposed to be about?

The article starts "Cattle, taurine cattle, Eurasian cattle, or European cattle (Bos taurus or Bos primigenius taurus) ...". If that is supposed to be the topic of of this article then presumably it should be moved to a title such as Taurine cattle (where there's already a page) or European cattle (redirects here, not to that page), and a new page written about cattle in general. Indicine cattle are just as much "cattle" as taurine cattle; if this is meant to be a top-level page about cattle (as used in modern English, i.e. not including smaller livestock) we should make that clear from the start and throughout the article. Thoughts? Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 12:04, 29 November 2021 (UTC)

Interesting. My eyeballs skipped right over those 'other names'. But now that you've highlighted it, they look oddly placed and the lead is quite technical (for such a simple concept). I would support simplifying it and moving the technical stuff later down the page, per WP:TECHNICAL, WP:EXPLAINLEAD. Platonk (talk) 18:43, 29 November 2021 (UTC)

I strongly support the idea of abiding by the hierarchy on wikispecies and in the wikipedia article on the genus which state that

• domestic cattle Bos taurus is a species in the cattle genus.
• wild cattle Bos primigenius is also a species in the cattle genus.
• the domestic cattle species Bos taurus has two subspecies:

• Bos taurus indicus = Indicine cattle = zebu = humped domestic cattle
• Bos taurus taurus = Taurine cattle = European cattle = humpless domestic cattle

• the wild cattle species Bos primigenius has three subspecies, all of which are extinct:

• Bos primigenius africanus = African aurochs
• Bos primigenius namadicus = Indian aurochs = ancestor of domesticated Bos taurus indicus
• Bos primigenius primigenius = Eurasian aurochs = ancestor of domesticated Bos taurus taurus

Therefore, this article should be about the Bos taurus species, either including both the Taurine and the Indicene subspecies or include neither of them and refer to each subspecies' separate article instead. --89.206.112.10 (talk) 10:28, 13 December 2021 (UTC)

• Comment, I think this article should be about all of the domestic cattle sub-species, including both listed here and as well as Bos taurus africanus etc. I suspect Taurine cattle will need to be expanded. If that is most easily achieved by moving this article to Taurine cattle and starting “cattle” afresh then let’s not make hard work for ourselves. On a side note, I also think Zebu should be moved to Indicine cattle, I seriously doubt it is the common name, I come from a country with over 14 million Indicine cattle (and I occasionally read some international agricultural publications), I have never read anywhere or heard anyone call them Zebu. Cavalryman (talk) 22:40, 15 December 2021 (UTC).
• I agree with Cavalryman – this should be the top-level article on cattle in general, covering taurine, indicine and Sanga types with approximately equal weight, with some coverage of taurindicine hybrids and mention of any significant oddities such as inter-species hybrids. It should have a global perspective and focus mainly on characteristics that are common to all cattle throughout the world; material that relates to one or few countries only should be removed or rewritten (the discussion of weights, for example). It may be that some could be moved the taurine cattle page. There is no reason to split this page on the lines suggested below, as we already have articles on the three principal types/subspecies.

IP editor, we don't need to pay any attention to what Wikispecies says about anything – that is user-submitted content and so not a reliable source. Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 11:08, 16 December 2021 (UTC)

@Platonk, Cavalryman, and Justlettersandnumbers: please see Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Taurine cattle. fiveby(zero) 04:23, 23 February 2022 (UTC)

I agree that this article should be about all domesticated cattle, not just taurine cattle, which has its own article. Zebu are just as much cattle as taurine cattle. Until last year the scope of this article was all domesticated cattle and I'm not sure how it ended up being focused only on taurine cattle. Kaldari (talk) 04:27, 23 February 2022 (UTC)

Since the consensus here is unanimous, I've edited the article to re-expand the scope to include all domesticated cattle. Kaldari (talk) 05:00, 23 February 2022 (UTC)

Edit request

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

---

Please add the following template to the article:--89.206.112.16 (talk) 17:06, 14 December 2021 (UTC)

marked as answered, discussion is ongoing. ~ cygnis insignis 10:24, 15 December 2021 (UTC)

@Cygnis insignis: Unfortunately, the discussion isn't ongoing, but hasn't even started yet. May I please ask you to place the template in the actual article, so a honest discussion can begin about whether both taurine and indicine cattle should be regarded as cattle?

The whole "cows vs. cattle" issue has no bearing on the above split proposal. --89.206.112.10 (talk) 10:47, 15 December 2021 (UTC)

 Done I added the template. No opinion on the split, no objections if the template is removed. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 11:50, 15 December 2021 (UTC)

• Oppose split. We already have a page on taurine cattle. It may be that some some content should be moved there from here, as discussed above. Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 11:11, 16 December 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose per Justlettersandnumbers, we already have the proposed split page but that does not preclude the transfer of content between pages. Cavalryman (talk) 12:07, 16 December 2021 (UTC).
• Oppose further split per above. The current articles are fine, though some information could be transferred between them to tighten up the article scope. Rreagan007 (talk) 20:17, 1 February 2022 (UTC)
• Oppose per above. 162 etc. (talk) 22:08, 15 February 2022 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Article scope

The scope of this article is all domesticated cattle, however, it mainly focuses on European (or taurine) cattle and very little on Zebu and Sanga cattle. We should move some of the content of this article over to taurine cattle in order to make this article more balanced and to flesh out the taurine cattle article more. (Note that from August 2021 until recently this article was explicitly rescoped to only taurine cattle by a single editor without discussion. This has been mostly reverted per discussion above, but things are still a bit of a mess due to these changes.) Kaldari (talk) 07:25, 23 February 2022 (UTC)

Cattle Taxonomy RFC

Please see the RFC at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Mammals#RFC: Taxonomy of Cattle and respond there if you have an opinion. Thanks! Kaldari (talk) 19:50, 27 February 2022 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 8 April 2022

Change dairy breeds are called cows and non-dairy breeds are called bulls to females of the species are called cows while intact males are called bulls and castrated males are called steers. 2601:180:301:E9D:548C:905B:5E53:B9DB (talk) 00:23, 8 April 2022 (UTC)

 Done Vandalism reverted. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 00:41, 8 April 2022 (UTC)

Zoroastrian Cleaning

Probably need a newer source than this for such an important topic, but apparently among Zoroastrians cow's urine went from being a preventative/cure against leprosy to being a common daily ablution to avoid disease and evil spirits until the early 20th century. In lieu of cow's urine, apparently goat or human urine was used as a less effective substitute. — LlywelynII 09:00, 11 April 2022 (UTC)

Vagueness

'dominance-associated aggressiveness does not correlate with rank position, but is closely related to rank distance between individuals.'

This is unclear. How is it related? Does it increase or decrease with rank distance? 79.100.144.23 (talk) 22:43, 5 July 2022 (UTC)