Cows

As Earth’s terrestrial surface grew cooler and drier during the Pliocene Epoch, vegetation adapted to survive. Forests gave way to prairies, and marshlands transitioned into grasslands. Grazing species acclimatized accordingly, and the creature believed to be the primary progenitor of the modern cow—the sturdy, wide-horned auroch—began its roam across Eurasia and Northern Africa. The earliest fossil evidence of aurochs dates back 2 million years.

Aurochs were first domesticated by humans roughly 10,000 years ago, probably in more than one location. Near present-day India, some were bred into the modern zebu. Separately, populations of Eurasian aurochs were being domesticated in the Middle East and Far East, creating the taurine (or “humpless”) cows of today. One study of fossil DNA suggests that all taurine cows were bred from a population of just 80 animals.

Ancient Egyptian art depicts female forms with arms upraised or headdresses worn to mimic the shape of cow’s horns—the goddesses Hathor and Isis embodied the divine cow who created the stars and the sun god Ra. In Germanic mythology, Auðumbla the cow licked salty stones into the shape of a man, Buri, who became Odin’s grandfather. In Hinduism, cows have been venerated in part to honor the goddess and mother of all cows, Kamadhenu.

Homer’s tales and Aristotle’s histories tell of armor made from cow leather, soldiers fed on cow meat, and the necessity of the strength of oxen to effectively plow fields. Across the world, humans were inventing and modifying better harness systems. Padded harness collars that didn’t cross an animal’s windpipe began to appear in China around 300 BCE, allowing oxen and horses to pull more weight over longer distances than they ever had before.

By the peak of their empire, the Romans had increased the size of the average kept cow through “improvement” techniques, including specific feed types and cross-breeding. One archaeological study of European sites found that, as the Empire declined, so did the rigor of husbandry—herd-tending labor was expensive, and isotope tests suggest that medieval cows, foraging and relatively free, grew temporarily smaller as a result.

The nursery rhyme that gave a cow astronautic abilities can be traced in present form to a 1765 Mother Goose collection, but its components may date back centuries further. The rhyme, which gave us the idiom “over the moon,” is alluded to frequently in popular culture: Bilbo Baggins recites a long variation in The Lord of the Rings, and Kermit the Frog interviews the cow from the launch pad before and after her leap for a Sesame Street News Flash.

Before industrialization, cows were kept in urban areas to keep milk’s production close to consumers. As cities grew crowded, dairy herds were moved out, increasing the time between production and consumption—that gap revealed raw milk as a carrier of disease. Louis Pasteur’s 1864 experiments exposing foods to low-level to kill unwanted bacteria were not the first of their kind, but by 1910 New York City had mandated the “pasteurization” of milk.

As early as 1870, farmers were trying to automate milk pumping, inserting tubes directly into milk-duct openings to increase flow. Vacuum systems were an early advance, and in 1922 the “surge milker” appeared, mimicking the natural tug of a calf’s nursing. Since then, dairy owners have increased production by using multiple vacuum systems within ever-larger “parlors”—some modern rotary units can empty more than 100 cows in less than 10 minutes.

“Ox” and “oxen” describe any domesticated bovine used as a draft animal, including cows and bulls. Babe the Blue Ox, the giant travel partner of mythical lumberjack Paul Bunyan, originated in 19th-century stories told by American timber workers in bunkhouses and around campfires. Babe’s fame grew after a 1916 ad campaign for the Red River Lumber Company credited Paul and Babe with stomping the holes that became Minnesota’s 10,000 lakes.

“The No. 1 animal of 1938 will almost certainly turn out to be Ferdinand,” wrote Life magazine after the release of Ferdinand the Bull. Preferring the smell of flowers to the thrill of a fight, Ferdinand brought themes of peaceful power and individual identity to a troubled era. In the aftermath of World War II, Jella Lepman, a Jewish author, translated the book, then had 30,000 copies printed and distributed as gifts to deprived German children.

Born in 1962, “Pawnee Farm Arlinda Chief” was a bull whose breeding sired 16,000 daughters and 2 million known great-granddaughters. By 2016, roughly 14 percent of Holsteins in the U.S. were his descendants. In 2011, USDA researchers found a genetic trait in Holsteins that, when inherited from both parents, would kill a calf in utero—and traced that trait to Chief. The study estimated 500,000 calves had died as a result worldwide in the preceding three decades.

Aurochs distinct from cows continued to rove eastern Europe in small populations until the Middle Ages, and may have gone extinct as late as 1627. However, because large grazing mammals are vital to maintain biodiversity, European scientists in 2013 began the TaurOs Project. By crossbreeding and selectively “back breeding,” they are working to establish a hearty species similar to aurochs that might repopulate Europe’s wild grasslands.

Most dairy cows live a lifelong cycle of pregnancy and giving birth with little rest. One 2019 study found that depriving cows of sleep decreased milk production and protein content. Another identified overcrowding as a primary stressor during “the transition period” (late pregnancy). And the Russian Ministry of Agriculture deployed virtual-reality headsets for cows to find out whether simply seeing images of grassy fields might help.

The American agricultural industry slaughtered 33 million cows in 2019 according to the USDA—about 90,000 on an average day. Also in 2019, over 9 million cows were kept to produce dairy. The federal government’s subsidies for beef and dairy farmers—over $30 billion each year, according to one study—have helped consumers to view cows, their body parts, and their milk as cheap necessities.