Cow = Female

I was looking to see what movies are in the theaters since our house is boxed up for the upcoming move. I had seen the trailers for
Barnyard
and I wondered about one aspect of the film. The hero, Otis, is a male voice (Kevin James) and regularly referred to in the third person masculine. (Note the prominent udder in the picture above [Update: apparently the picture cannot be linked to so see the page directly.]). People, people, people. One does not have to be a 4-H or FFA nerd to know that a cow is a female bovine. Here is a primer for you all:

calf – young bovine
steer – male, castrated (this is where our beef comes from)
heifer – female, not yet lactating (i.e., has not yet calved)
cow – mature female, lactating (we get our milk from these)
bull – adult male with all his equipment intact.

And finally, a t-shirt I saw at Home Depot today for a ranch in Folsom, LA that raises Texas Longhorns: “Our bulls are horny.”