Parts of a Cow: The cow is one of the widely known domestic animals around the world. Till date around eight hundred breeds of cattle have been recognized. The cows are an very important animal, since the cow helps us with our economic structure and also provides us with food.
It is really important for us to know about this animal, since they are so important for our wellbeing. To get to know about the internal parts of cow and the external parts of cows will help us to understand them better, hence let’s get started with the list of parts of cow.
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List of Parts of a Cow
Name of Parts of a Cow
Description of the Parts of a Cow on the list
Ear
The ears of a cow are a sensitive part of their body. The cows use their ears to express their feelings. The ears normally have four different postures. Among them they have two relaxed postures, and two alert postures. The ear of the cows show an immediate emotional state of the particular individual.
Horn
The horns of the cows arise from the subcutaneous connective tissue, which is present under the scalp. These horns are important for the cows, since they help them to secure a point for holding the animal’s head in its place.
Eye
Cows have very generous looking eyes. They are big and mostly black in colour. Their eyelids also have enough eyelashes. The iris contracts or expands to change the size of the pupils of the eye. Which helps them to focus on a particular object.
Nostril
The nostrils of the cow, is also known as the muzzle. It is the protruding portion of the animal’s face. The color of a cow’s nose can be pink or grey to black. Is the nose is balck in color then that means they have at least one black gene present in their genetic orientation.
Dewlap
The dewlap is referred to the extra flap of skin which stays hanging out from beneath the lower jaw of the animal. The hypothesis behind the presence of the dewlap is that the dewlap played a great role in serving as a sexual signaling. It is said to make males look bigger and more fierce than their rivals.
Knee
Cows have their knees on their hind legs. The knees of the cow is also known as the stifle joint. The knees are similar to the wrists of the cow in the front legs and equivalent to the ankles present on their hind legs.
Hoof
The Hoof of the cow is also known as the cloven. The cloven is divided into two equal parts. These parts are known as claws. The hoofs are important for them since it supports the weight of the whole body. The Hoof of the cow is made up of keratin and water, just like their horn.
Dewclaw
The hoofs of the cows have the dew claws. These few claws helps the cows by giving them traction. The legs of the cows have to be extremely strong because they have to carry the weight of the whole body of the cow on themselves.
Elbow
Even though cows do have elbows, they still are not very prominent. The cows have their knees on their hind legs and the elbows are present on their front legs.
Udder
The udder is the mass of skin which stays hanging from beneath the cow. It’s the udder which consists of the pair of mammary glands, which helps in the process of milking and also it helps in the production of milk.
Teat
The projections from the mammary glands are known as teats. It’s from the teats that the milk flows. It is also helpful for feeding the offspring. The number of teats depends on the size of the animal.
Toes
The hooves of the cows are divided into two separate digits called the toes. Just like all the other animals with hooves, cows also have the hard hooves at the end of their toes. This structure helps them to walk on rough and uneven surfaces.
Hock
Hock is just the joint in the hind leg of the cow. It is situated above the fetlock joint. These are very similar to the human knees. They also correspond to the joint in the fowls.
Stifle
The stifle of the cow is the joint present in the flank. It’s structure and function is equivalent to the human knee. Cows have three ligaments in their kneecaps while humans have only one. Stifle injury is deadly, since there is no way to heal the stifle injury in cattles.
Tail
The tail of the cow is the extension of the spine. It is made up of vertebrae. There are about eighteen to 20 vertebrae present in the cow’s tail. The cows normally have 207 bones altogether, hence the tail itself makes up around ten percent of the bone structure. The little hair present on the tail is known as the switch.
Withers
The ridge between the shoulder blades is known as the withers. It is usually considered to be the tallest point of the body in some animals. For cattle, they are measured from the tip of their hips to get their perfect measurement.