Amazing Animals:
COWS BY THE NUMBERS
• Average cubic feet of gas a cow belches each day: 35 • Gallons of milk a good dairy cow can produce daily: 8 gallons • Gallons of urine produced daily: 30 • Pounds of manure produced daily: 60 • Distance of world record toss of a cow chip: 266 ft • Number of times an average cow stands up and sits down daily: 14 • Percent of DNA genome cows share with humans: 80 • Normal lifespan of a cow: 20-25 years • Typical lifespan of a beef steer: 2 years • Number of cows in the U.S.: 90 million • Number of people in the U.S.: 318 million • Percent of U.S. beef cows in Texas: 13% • Approximate percent of food budget Americans spend on dairy products: 12% • Average number of people killed by cows in U.S. annually: 20 • Average number of people killed by bee stings in the U.S. annually: 60 • Number of 7-ounce servings of beef a typical cow will yield: 1,000 • Average annual consumption of beef by Americans: 61 lbs. • Average annual consumption of poultry by Americans: 97 lbs. • Approx. number of cows consumed by McDonalds per day: 2,500 • Percent of U.S. cattle purchased by McDonalds: 1 • Number of cows a typical American will eat in a lifetime: 350
• The Latin word ‘caput’ meaning ‘head’ is the origin of the word ‘capital’ meaning ‘a principle sum of money.’ That word went into the Anglo-Norman language as ‘catel’ and the Old French language as ‘chatel.’ That evolved into the word ‘cattle’ because a person measured wealth in terms of how many head of livestock they owned. The Old English word ‘feoh’ also meant cattle or property, and survives as our word ‘fee.’ • Cattle were domesticated some 10,000 years ago, descended from a species of wild ox called aurochs which is now extinct. DNA studies have shown that it’s likely the 1.4 billion cattle that now inhabit the earth are descendants of a single herd of auroch. • Christopher Columbus brought cattle with him on his second journey in 1493. Texas longhorns descended from the cattle explorer Coronado brought with him in the year 1540. • Cows have nearly panoramic vision, being able to see 300 degrees from side to side. This helps them spot predators as they graze. Their sense of smell is highly developed and it’s been estimated they can catch a whiff of a predator at a distance of six miles. • Cows have 32 teeth, but they are all located on the bottom part of the jaw. The top part of the mouth is a hard platform of skin which serves as a grinding pad. • Cattle are ruminants, meaning they have a digestive system that allows them to digest difficult foods by regurgitating and re-chewing the cud. The cud is then re-swallowed and further digested by specialized microorganisms in the four different compartments of the stomach, called a rumen. They can digest things such as almond shells and shredded newspaper.
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Weekly SUDOKU
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King CROSSWORD
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