Talk:Cattle

Global greenhouse emissions

The article says 10% of global greenhouse emissions. I think this should be human activity related emissions. I don't think this includes "natural" sources such as geological events, termites, etc. It also isn't clear which types of emissions (CO2, methane, etc.) by weight, volume, or temperature impact. 73.110.102.41 (talk) 20:52, 21 November 2021 (UTC)

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)

Does "cows" include bulls?

Taxonomy aside, it is an article about cows, but not bulls, apparently. ~ cygnis insignis 06:02, 15 December 2021 (UTC)

@Cygnis insignis: the terms "cows" and "bulls" denote the females and males of a whole range of mammals, including seals, camels and even whales. This page is about cattle of the Bos taurus species rather than cows of other genera. --89.206.112.10 (talk) 07:00, 15 December 2021 (UTC)

Cow is a redirect. And as usual, a redirect often points to the most frequent use of the word. When someone in an English-speaking country hears "cow", they usually think of a bovine (non-specific male or female, just bovine thing)... not some other female non-bovine mammal. And as is typical in Wikipedia, there is a hatnote when you arrive from Cow to Cattle which says "Cow" and "Cows" redirect here. For other uses, see Cattle (disambiguation) and Cow (disambiguation). Platonk (talk) 07:05, 15 December 2021 (UTC)

Do you mean to say that because people unfamiliar with the subject refer to all cattle as cows, bulls should be excluded from the article on cattle?--89.206.112.10 (talk) 07:11, 15 December 2021 (UTC)

People do indeed see a 'cattle' and say "Oh, it's a cow!" whether or not it's a cow or bull. Yes, the word 'cow' encompasses both sexes of cattle. (pausing while I go get the dictionary on the shelf) Ah, I see that definition #3 is tagged as an Americanism definition for 'cow': "a domestic bovine animal, whether a steer, bull, cow, or calf". Platonk (talk) 07:27, 15 December 2021 (UTC)

Thank you! So this article is about cows and bulls of all domestic bovine cattle after all. Also, depending on what dictionary you're using, definition #3 may very well be the author's refined ironic reference owing to his perception of American english as lacking sophistication.--89.206.112.10 (talk) 07:58, 15 December 2021 (UTC)

It is unusual to have one gender as a link out from an article on an animal, how that emerged is likely to be a consequence of a lack of scope when allying taxonomy to a complex of common terms for domestic breeds. Saying that some cattle are cows is likely to be correct, by a passerby, most economic value is in the females and male births have a different, abbreviated, destiny. ~ cygnis insignis 10:21, 15 December 2021 (UTC)

@89.206.112.10: My offer of what was in my dictionary was to help the discussion by showing a definition of "cow" that could have explained how the article and redirects got to where they got... not to give you fodder to repeatedly insult Americans, American English, the dictionary publishers, and then attack and insult me [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7]. Since it's a college-level dictionary for American English it is highly unlikely that the dictionary editor was making any derogatory or ironic comments about some alleged American 'superficiality' or 'lack of sophistication' [8].

Reproduced from the dictionary, including the markups:

cow¹
     * 3 [West] a domestic bovine animal, whether a steer, bull, cow, or calf: usually used in pl. (page 320)

* = Americanism (footnote page 321)

Americanism
     2 a word, phrase, or usage originating in or peculiar to American English (page 44)

— Definitions, Webster's New World Dictionary of American English, Third College Edition (1988)

I wasn't presenting any argument for or against the use of the word 'cow', the slant of the article, or excuses for any redirects. Continue the discussion about the Cattle article, but keep your comments civil — and I recommend you strike your extant uncivil comments. Platonk (talk) 19:36, 15 December 2021 (UTC)

@Platonk: Please consider imagining the following template to be displayed above every comment ever written:

Life is fun and I wish you some as well. Only Karens waste their time on Earth indulging in victimhood.--89.206.112.10 (talk) 06:53, 16 December 2021 (UTC)

Steer (cow) redirects here and there isn't any other "steer" redirect with a different disambiguator. Plantdrew (talk) 21:02, 29 December 2021 (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.

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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)