Staring Down Supercow's Butt.

I smell ham! [homeresque dribbling and oozing all over the keyboard....Zappp!]

Mk... Saw a whole bunch of bulls. Where's the cows?

Ham is pig.

@ fluff

*slaps forehead*

Looks like someone needs to relearn their barn animals and food pyramid correlations.

Padraig...I've never once seen it in cows. I'm no genetecist but I'm fairly certain it only happens in bulls. Piedmont bulls with this gene defect fetch a very nice price, but personally I'm not a fan of the meat...it's too tender.

Third row down, fifth from the left, there's a cow. I wonder if she's fertile or not?

o lordy lordy did we have to see that bovines mutated turdcutter? P.U.!

Isn't bull a male cow?

This is gross! I'm not really a "vegan" but I don't eat any meat, eggs or dairy. After seeing some real factory farms in person I realized how cruel most of the meat and dairy industry is.

Monia, you obviously come from the west or some industrial place where they know nothing on how to raise cattle. There is only one major dairy in WI that has EVER been even cited by PETA for being "cruel" by THEIR standards, and that's saying a lot. The majority of WI and even midwest beef is not raised in the holding pens that veal and pork is (which yes, is cruel).

Next time you feel like spouting nonsense about an industry that you obviously dont know about and/or live in a horrible state for (i.e. California/the south east US), go to ALF. I'm sure they'll care.

@ alex

it all depends on how you use the term. most people in the industry only use the term cow in reference to the female, and bovine or cattle in reference to either. most people, however, just call them cows. I don't think either way is wrong.

Alex, cow is by definition the adult female of cattle -- so a bull is no more a a "male cow" than a man is a "male woman." Technically, that's the case, anyway, but in common usage the word cow is often used for either sex. A bull, on the other hand, is an uncastrated male, and a steer is a castrated male (if it's castrated before reaching sexual maturity, that is -- if it's castrated after, it's a technically a stag, although that's not a commonly used term).

Thanks for the clarification, meg and c-dub! I've always thought that "cow" refers to both the male and female cattle.

Oops...yep ham is pig. But I was so mesmerised imagining those massive legs on my table that I totally ignored the front end of the animal. And you have to admit that it has something pig-like...

The factory farms I'm referring to are in North Carolina. They were turkeys and pigs. They were very cruel. I saw it. Animals laying in their own waste, no space to hardly turn around, fed nothing but pelleted food and given a lot of antibiotics. I wanted to bring them some fresh greens from my garden but the farmer said they wouldn't know what to do with it because it would be so unfamiliar to them. I know some of guys who work there and may parents live near the farms, so we actually know a LOT about this. One turkey farm I know of gives there turkeys so much growth hormones to "beef" them up that they lost about 1000 turkeys from heart failure. I heard that cattle were also mistreated but haven't seen that with my own eyes other than some sorry cattle being transported in trucks. And I don't agree with many things PETA does. I think they may do some good but I feel they are too extreme. For one thing I think fishing is a great activity for families even though I don't eat fish. It's a great way to experience nature. It makes me want to preserve the quality of our lakes, streams and oceans etc. I know I got a bit off topic but anyway, hopefully you get the idea. I wasn't referring specifically to the treatment of cattle but rather the animals being raised for food in general. I'm sure some farms treat animals quite humanly. I just happen to know that many don't.

and excuse the typos please. typing is not what I do best ;)

oh my, yeah...turkey, chicken, and pig farms are notoriously cruel. but if you want real cruelty, go to france and see the goose farms where they make fois gras :(

Oh well; what about going to france and see the vast amount of space (compared to any other industrialised country) a major part of the cows have got there. (charolais anyone? La bourgogne?). (Don't get me wrong here; goose force feeding is horrible, but not restricted to france...)

@meg - thanks for pointing the picture out. Must have missed it going through the whole lot.

the cow doesn't appear fertile, though...for a dry cow or a heifer, her udders are very deformed.

@fluff
It's true that it's not restricted to france, but pretty much every industrial nation has prohibited it, and some even prohibit fois gras from regions that are known to do that. France didn't give a crap about how everyone else was doing the right thing, they just kept on force-feeding their geese, and still do to this day...france really doesn't follow progressive things.