Cow - a mature female of a bovine family

Cattle - the whole "cow" family

Heifer - kind of like a cow, but not a true cow yet, and won't actually be a cow, won't begin to have her birthdays recorded or even be taken seriously as a cow, until she has given birth to her first calf.

Bull - an adult male bovine animal

Steer - young ox, especially one castrated before maturity and raised for beef

Ox - an adult castrated bull

A Holsteins spots are like fingerprints. No two cows have the same spots.

A cow's heart weighs about 5lbs and pumps 400 pints of blood through the udder to produce 1 pint of milk. That means nearly 10,000 pints of blood are pumped through a cow's udder daily to produce 3 gallons of milk.

A cow gives nearly 200,000 glasses of milk in her lifetime.

A cow weighs about 1400lbs.

Cows drink 30 gallons of water a day.

The pilgrims brought cows to America.

A cow has about 207 bones in its body.

Cows have cloven hooves. In galloping through boggy places or in deep mud, cattle can distance a horse. Their toes spread, and therefore their wide feet do not sink so deep as do those of the solid-hoofed horse. Furthermore, the cleft between the toes permits the air to enter the hole in the mud as the foot is raised; whereas the horse must overcome a partial vacuum when it withdraw its hoof, and so wastes considerable muscular effort beside having its speed retarded and its self-confidence shaken.

Cows produce up to 64qts of milk a day, 14lbs of cheese, 5 gallons of ice cream or 6lbs of butter.

Top producing Holsteins, milking twice a day,  have been know to produce up to 67,914lbs of milk in 365 days.

The average cow produces 30lbs of urine and 65lbs pounds of feces daily.

It takes 340 squirts of milk to fill a milk pail.

A cow doesn't bite the grass that feeds her, she curls her tongue around it.

It is possible to lead a cow upstairs but not downstairs, because a cow's knees cannot bend properly to walk back down.

Cattle can perceive higher and fainter noises than humans can, and they can smell scents that are up to six miles away (if the wind is right).

The age of a cow is always based on her age when she calves.

This varies with different breeds. In other words, your record doesn't begin until you've had a calf, if you're a cow.

Old wives' tales claim cows can forecast the weather. "When a cow tries to scratch her ear, it means a shower is very near.

When she thumps her ribs with her tail, look out for thunder, lightning and hail." But when a cow sticks her tongue up her nose, who knows?