I received approximately an average of 10 requests every week/2 weeks on the pattern for large wedding dolls, never had time to do that, and finally made it.

 

I am not taking new customized design now, because my mind is very preoccupied with lots of stressful matters.

Yes, that is a deer leg immediately adjacent to my car. What you can't see in this picture is the dead possum, which is behind my car on the other side of the driveway. Today's series of events:

 

#1. Drive down driveway while on phone with friend.

 

#2. See dead possum, tell friend, freak out a little, discuss whom I should call, how I should not touch it, etc.

 

#3. Promptly park car in regular spot.

 

#4. Hop out of car, leaving driver's side door open, run over near possum, cautiously get close and tell friend that yes, it appears to be dead. Get incredibly skeeved out by rat-like tail and creepy, pale possum hands. My sister isn't home, so I tell my friend I need to call her to find out if she's seen it.

 

#5. Turn around to return to car, see deer leg immediately next to my car, within the arc of the open door. Realize in that split-second that it's likely I stepped on it while getting out of car.

 

#6. Make yelpy alarmed screaming noise, hyperventilate and vomit within a space of about ten seconds.

 

#7. Tell friend via hyperventilating gibberish that there is a deer leg next to my car, and that I probably stepped on it. Start seeing spots like I'm going to faint. Sit on porch.

 

#8. Calm down enough to assure friend that I'm not dying, I did not find one of our cats dead, and I'm okay, but there is a piece of bloody deer carcass in my driveway.

 

#9. Call my sister while still freaking out, scare the shit out of her but quickly clear up any possibility of sister/car/bloody deer/coyote accidents. Sister realizes she may have parked her car over deer leg last night.

  

Jesus my head still hurts from the panic attack/crying/freaking out/laughing hysterically when my sis came home and we had to get the whole mess into garbage bags, etc.

 

F-ing coyotes or something, wtf.

 

And I don't live out in the country, I live in Green Hills.

Approximate Focus Distance : 13.7m

 

Canon EF 600mm f/4L IS USM Lens

ISO Speed 2500

Aperture : f/5.6

Exposure : 1/20 secs

Exposure Bias : -1 EV

Focal Length : 600mm

The Coast Guard Cutter Hamilton’s (WMSL 753) crew poses with approximately 26,250 pounds of cocaine and 3,700 pounds of marijuana at Port Everglades, Florida, Nov. 22, 2021. The largest drug interdiction in the ship’s history. (U.S. Coast Guard photo by Petty Officer 3rd Class Jose Hernandez)

Approximately 120 Soldiers of the 311th Expeditionary Sustainment Command flew in to Long Beach Airport, Long Beach, Calif., Sept. 18. These Soldiers are returning home after a year-long deployment.

 

The 311th ESC, an Army Reserve logistical command headquarters in West Los Angeles was based in Kandahar, Afghanistan in support of Operation Enduring Freedom. The 311th ESC's main operations were to execute sustainment and retrograde operations throughout Afghanistan in support of the U.S. and Coalition forces. The mobilized 311th consisted of approximately 240 Soldiers from various states across the country.

(U.S. Army photo by Spc. Heather Doppke/released)

Marker's Mark distillery Loretto KY

 

This seven-room frame edifice, situated approximately 120 feet west of Warehouse A, was constructed around 1889 to provide housing for the head distiller and his family. The structure consists of a two-story, rectangular shaped

main block, a smaller two-story wing attached on the west

facade; and a one-story addition which projects from the north

facade of the wing. The house is of wood frame construction;

is sheathed in red-painted wooden clapboards; and is capped

with a wood shingle covered gable roof. A single rectangular shaped red brick chimney with corbeled cap pierces the roof of the main block at its apex. Windows are generally of the sixover-six wood sash variety, are set in cream-painted rectangular surrounds, and feature wooden shutters in the same color.

 

At the time this photo was taken, it was being utilized as a reception center for visitors wishing to tour the distillery premises, and it contained exhibits of whiskey making memorabilia.

 

In 2017, the cottage was repurposed as Star Hill Provisions restaurant. Named for the original tract of land where the family's ancestor T.W. Samuels began his first forays into distillation, the kitchen serves a rotating menu of farm-to-table dishes inspired by local favorites like the Benedictine sandwich, tangy-hot pork ribs, and an adaptation of the classic Kentucky Hot Brown (with added country ham) as well as more esoteric offerings.

Approximately 350 staff, faculty, students and community leaders attended the 23rd Annual Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Breakfast hosted by COD and Benedictine University.

This is a photograph from the SSE Airticity Dublin Marathon which was held in Dublin City, Ireland on Monday October 27th 2014 at 09:00. This is the 35th year of the SSE Airtricity Dublin Marathon, which is run through the historic Georgian streets of Dublin, Ireland's largest and capital city. This photograph was taken in Dublin City Center opposite the Four Courts. This was at approximately the 3 mile point.

  

PLEASE NOTE: These are completely unofficial photographs. We have no linkages whatsoever to the official photography outlets for the marathon

  

Please read the information below on how to use these photographs on social media or other media

Can I use these photographs directly from Flickr on my social media account(s)?

 

Yes - of course you can! Flickr provides several ways to share this and other photographs in this Flickr set. You can share to: email, Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter, Tumblr, LiveJournal, and Wordpress and Blogger blog sites. Your mobile, tablet, or desktop device will also offer you several different options for sharing this photo page on your social media outlets.

 

We take these photographs as a hobby and as a contribution to the running community in Ireland. Our only "cost" is our request that if you are using these images: (1) on social media sites such as Facebook, Tumblr, Pinterest, Twitter,LinkedIn, Google+, etc or (2) other websites, blogs, web multimedia, commercial/promotional material that you must provide a link back to our Flickr page to attribute us.

 

This also extends the use of these images for Facebook profile pictures. In these cases please make a separate wall or blog post with a link to our Flickr page. If you do not know how this should be done for Facebook or other social media please email us and we will be happy to help suggest how to link to us.

 

I want to download these pictures to my computer or device?

 

You can download the photographic image here direct to your computer or device. This version is the low resolution web-quality image. How to download will vary slight from device to device and from browser to browser. However - look for a symbol with three dots 'ooo' or the link to 'View/Download' all sizes. When you click on either of these you will be presented with the option to download the image. Remember just doing a right-click and "save target as" will not work on Flickr.

 

I want get full resolution, print-quality, copies of these photographs?

 

If you just need these photographs for online usage then they can be used directly once you respect their Creative Commons license and provide a link back to our Flickr set if you use them. For offline usage and printing all of the photographs posted here on this Flickr set are available free, at no cost, at full image resolution.

 

Please email petermooney78 AT gmail DOT com with the links to the photographs you would like to obtain a full resolution copy of. We also ask race organisers, media, etc to ask for permission before use of our images for flyers, posters, etc. We reserve the right to refuse a request.

 

In summary please remember when requesting photographs from us - If you are using the photographs online all we ask is for you to provide a link back to our Flickr set or Flickr pages. You will find the link above clearly outlined in the description text which accompanies this photograph. Taking these photographs and preparing them for online posting does take a significant effort and time. We are not posting photographs to Flickr for commercial reasons. If you really like what we do please spread the link around your social media, send us an email, leave a comment beside the photographs, send us a Flickr email, etc. If you are using the photographs in newspapers or magazines we ask that you mention where the original photograph came from.

 

I would like to contribute something for your photograph(s)?

Many people offer payment for our photographs. As stated above we do not charge for these photographs. We take these photographs as our contribution to the running community in Ireland. If you feel that the photograph(s) you request are good enough that you would consider paying for their purchase from other photographic providers or in other circumstances we would suggest that you can provide a donation to any of the great charities in Ireland who do work for Cancer Care or Cancer Research in Ireland.

 

We use Creative Commons Licensing for these photographs

We use the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License for all our photographs here in this photograph set. What does this mean in reality?

The explaination is very simple.

Attribution- anyone using our photographs gives us an appropriate credit for it. This ensures that people aren't taking our photographs and passing them off as their own. This usually just mean putting a link to our photographs somewhere on your website, blog, or Facebook where other people can see it.

ShareAlike – anyone can use these photographs, and make changes if they like, or incorporate them into a bigger project, but they must make those changes available back to the community under the same terms.

 

Creative Commons aims to encourage creative sharing. See some examples of Creative Commons photographs on Flickr: www.flickr.com/creativecommons/

 

I ran in the race - but my photograph doesn't appear here in your Flickr set! What gives?

 

As mentioned above we take these photographs as a hobby and as a voluntary contribution to the running community in Ireland. Very often we have actually ran in the same race and then switched to photographer mode after we finished the race. Consequently, we feel that we have no obligations to capture a photograph of every participant in the race. However, we do try our very best to capture as many participants as possible. But this is sometimes not possible for a variety of reasons:

 

     ►You were hidden behind another participant as you passed our camera

     ►Weather or lighting conditions meant that we had some photographs with blurry content which we did not upload to our Flickr set

     ►There were too many people - some races attract thousands of participants and as amateur photographs we cannot hope to capture photographs of everyone

     ►We simply missed you - sorry about that - we did our best!

  

You can email us petermooney78 AT gmail DOT com to enquire if we have a photograph of you which didn't make the final Flickr selection for the race. But we cannot promise that there will be photograph there. As alternatives we advise you to contact the race organisers to enquire if there were (1) other photographs taking photographs at the race event or if (2) there were professional commercial sports photographers taking photographs which might have some photographs of you available for purchase. You might find some links for further information above.

 

Don't like your photograph here?

That's OK! We understand!

 

If, for any reason, you are not happy or comfortable with your picture appearing here in this photoset on Flickr then please email us at petermooney78 AT gmail DOT com and we will remove it as soon as possible. We give careful consideration to each photograph before uploading.

 

I want to tell people about these great photographs!

Great! Thank you! The best link to spread the word around is probably http://www.flickr.com/peterm7/sets

  

Approximately 30 years ago, we acquired a collection of lantern slides in London. I would welcome any comments and input, especially if it relates to likely dates of the pictures.

I found this Phantom Midge (Chaoborus) larva in a shallow pool. I placed it in an aquarium and took some shots. This is a 1:1 shot. The bubbles front and rear are air bladders . Looking toward the head the fangs are modified antenna used to grab food.

This model is only approximate, since it uses equilateral triangles, whereas the actual great stellated dodecahedron has isosceles triangles with angles of 72º, 72º, and 36º.

 

One of the Kepler–Poinsot polyhedra. Made with Geofix pieces at home in Cambridgeport, MA.

Approximately 50 mile loop from Mormon Well road out to the DNWR border and back around Gass Peak. Lots of awesome scenery, mixed between flat out open trail, severe washouts and rocky wash type sections.

www.offroadtrailguide.com

Approximately 1200 large baking liners and 500 mini baking liners. $100

Approximately 1,000 protesters rallied in downtown Louisville, Kentucky November 10, 2016 to register their concern about harmful rhetoric used by president-elect Trump and the consequences it may produce in his emboldened followers.

On The Flood Plain.

More info. Ref: D422_407

Approximately 400 attendees participated in the COD Cares 2015 Fall Day of Action and Pumpkin Party.

Fountains Abbey is one of the largest and best preserved ruined Cistercian monasteries in England. It is located approximately 3 miles (5 kilometres) south-west of Ripon in North Yorkshire, near to the village of Aldfield. Founded in 1132, the abbey operated for 407 years becoming one of the wealthiest monasteries in England until its dissolution in 1539 under the order of Henry VIII.

 

The abbey is a Grade I listed building owned by the National Trust and part of the designated Studley Royal Park including the Ruins of Fountains Abbey UNESCO World Heritage Site.

 

Foundation

 

After a dispute and riot in 1132 at the Benedictine house of St Mary's Abbey, in York, 13 monks were expelled (among them Saint Robert of Newminster) and, after unsuccessful attempts to form a new monastery were taken under the protection of Thurstan, Archbishop of York. He provided them with land in the valley of the River Skell, a tributary of the Ure. The enclosed valley had all the natural features needed for the creation of a monastery, providing shelter from the weather, stone and timber for building, and a supply of running water. After enduring a harsh winter in 1133, the monks applied to join the Cistercian order which since the end of the previous century was a fast-growing reform movement that by the beginning of the 13th century was to have over 500 houses. So it was that in 1135, Fountains became the second Cistercian house in northern England, after Rievaulx. The Fountains monks became subject to Clairvaux Abbey, in Burgundy which was under the rule of St Bernard. Under the guidance of Geoffrey of Ainai, a monk sent from Clairvaux, the group learned how to celebrate the seven Canonical Hours according to Cistercian usage and were shown how to construct wooden buildings in accordance with Cistercian practice.

 

Consolidation

 

After Henry Murdac was elected abbot in 1143, the small stone church and timber claustral buildings were replaced. Within three years, an aisled nave had been added to the stone church, and the first permanent claustral buildings built in stone and roofed in tile had been completed.

In 1146 an angry mob, annoyed at Murdac for his role in opposing the election of William FitzHerbert as archbishop of York, attacked the abbey and burnt down all but the church and some surrounding buildings.The community recovered swiftly from the attack and founded four daughter houses. Henry Murdac resigned as abbot in 1147 upon becoming the Archbishop of York and was replaced first by Maurice, Abbot of Rievaulx then, on the resignation of Maurice, by Thorald. Thorald was forced by Henry Murdac to resign after two years in office. The next abbot, Richard, held the post until his death in 1170 and restored the abbey's stability and prosperity. In 20 years as abbot, he supervised a huge building programme which involved completing repairs to the damaged church and building more accommodation for the increasing number of recruits. Only the chapter house was completed before he died and the work was ably continued by his successor, Robert of Pipewell, under whose rule the abbey gained a reputation for caring for the needy.

 

The next abbot was William, who presided over the abbey from 1180 to 1190 and he was succeeded by Ralph Haget, who had entered Fountains at the age of 30 as a novice, after pursuing a military career. During the European famine of 1194 Haget ordered the construction of shelters in the vicinity of the abbey and provided daily food rations to the poor enhancing the abbey's reputation for caring for the poor and attracting more grants from wealthy benefactors.

In the first half of the 13th century Fountains increased in reputation and prosperity under the next three abbots, John of York (1203–1211), John of Hessle (1211–1220) and John of Kent (1220–1247). They were burdened with an inordinate amount of administrative duties and increasing demands for money in taxation and levies but managed to complete another massive expansion of the abbey's buildings. This included enlarging the church and building an infirmary.

 

Difficulties

 

In the second half of the 13th century the abbey was in more straitened circumstances. It was presided over by eleven abbots, and became financially unstable largely due to forward selling its wool crop, and the abbey was criticised for its dire material and physical state when it was visited by Archbishop John le Romeyn in 1294. The run of disasters that befell the community continued into the early 14th century when northern England was invaded by the Scots and there were further demands for taxes. The culmination of these misfortunes was the Black Death of 1348–1349. The loss of manpower and income due to the ravages of the plague was almost ruinous.

A further complication arose as a result of the Papal Schism of 1378–1409. Fountains Abbey along with other English Cistercian houses was told to break off any contact with the mother house of Citeaux, which supported a rival pope. This resulted in the abbots forming their own chapter to rule the order in England and consequently they became increasingly involved in internecine politics. In 1410, following the death of Abbot Burley of Fountains, the community was riven by several years of turmoil over the election of his successor. Contending candidates John Ripon, Abbot of Meaux, and Roger Frank, a monk of Fountains were locked in conflict until 1415 when Ripon was finally appointed, ruling until his death in 1434. Under abbots John Greenwell (1442–1471), Thomas Swinton (1471–8), John Darnton (1478–95), who undertook some much needed restoration of the fabric of the abbey, including notable work on the church, and Marmaduke Huby (1495–1526) Fountains regained stability and prosperity.

At Abbot Huby's death he was succeeded by William Thirsk who was accused by the royal commissioners of immorality and inadequacy and was dismissed as abbot. He was replaced by Marmaduke Bradley, a monk of the abbey who had reported Thirsk's supposed offences, testified against him and offered the authorities six hundred marks for the post of abbot. In 1539 it was Bradley who surrendered the abbey when its seizure was ordered under Henry VIII at the Dissolution of the Monasteries.

 

The abbey precinct covered 70 acres (28 ha) surrounded by an 11-foot (3.4 m) wall built in the 13th century, some parts of which are visible to the south and west of the abbey. The area consists of three concentric zones cut by the River Skell flowing from west to east across the site. The church and claustral buildings stand at the centre of the precinct north of the Skell, the inner court containing the domestic buildings stretches down to the river and the outer court housing the industrial and agricultural buildings lies on the river's south bank. The early abbey buildings were added to and altered over time, causing deviations from the strict Cistercian type. Outside the walls were the abbey's granges.[citation needed]

The original abbey church was built of wood and "was probably" two stories high; it was, however, quickly replaced in stone. The church was damaged in the attack on the abbey in 1146 and was rebuilt, in a larger scale, on the same site. Building work was completed c.1170.[11] This structure, completed around 1170, was 300 ft (91 m) long and had 11 bays in the side aisles. A lantern tower was added at the crossing of the church in the late 12th century. The presbytery at the eastern end of the church was much altered in the 13th century. The church's greatly lengthened choir, commenced by Abbot John of York, 1203–11, and carried on by his successor terminates, like that of Durham Cathedral, in an eastern transept, the work of Abbot John of Kent, 1220–47. The 160-foot-tall (49 m) tower, which was added not long before the dissolution, by Abbot Huby, 1494–1526, is in an unusual position at the northern end of the north transept and bears Huby's motto 'Soli Deo Honor et Gloria'. The sacristry adjoined the south transept.

The cloister, which had arcading of black marble from Nidderdale and white sandstone, is in the centre of the precinct and to the south of the church. The three-aisled chapter-house and parlour open from the eastern walk of the cloister and the refectory, with the kitchen and buttery attached, are at right angles to its southern walk. Parallel with the western walk is an immense vaulted substructure serving as cellars and store-rooms, which supported the dormitory of the conversi (lay brothers) above. This building extended across the river and at its south-west corner were the latrines, built above the swiftly flowing stream. The monks' dormitory was in its usual position above the chapter-house, to the south of the transept. Peculiarities of this arrangement include the position of the kitchen, between the refectory and calefactory, and of the infirmary above the river to the west, adjoining the guest-houses.

 

The abbot's house, one of the largest in all of England,is located to the east of the latrine block, where portions of it are suspended on arches over the River Skell.It was built in the mid-twelfth century as a modest single-storey structure, then, from the fourteenth century, underwent extensive expansion and remodelling to end up in the 16th century as a grand dwelling with fine bay windows and grand fireplaces. The great hall was an expansive room 52 by 21 metres (171 by 69 ft).

Among other apartments, for the designation of which see the ground-plan, was a domestic oratory or chapel,

 

1/2-by-23-foot (14 by 7 m), and a kitchen, 50-by-38-foot (15 by 12 m)

 

Medieval monasteries were sustained by landed estates that were given to them as endowments and from which they derived an income from rents. They were the gifts of the founder and subsequent patrons, but some were purchased from cash revenues. At the outset, the Cistercian order rejected gifts of mills and rents, churches with tithes and feudal manors as they did not accord with their belief in monastic purity, because they involved contact with laymen. When Archbishop Thurstan founded the abbey he gave the community 260 acres (110 ha) of land at Sutton north of the abbey and 200 acres (81 ha) at Herleshowe to provide support while the abbey became established. In the early years the abbey struggled to maintain itself because further gifts were not forthcoming and Thurstan could not help further because the lands he administered were not his own, but part of the diocesan estate. After a few years of impoverished struggle to establish the abbey, the monks were joined by Hugh, a former dean of York Minster, a rich man who brought a considerable fortune as well as furniture and books to start the library.

By 1135 the monks had acquired only another 260 acres (110 ha) at Cayton, given by Eustace fitzJohn of Knaresborough "for the building of the abbey". Shortly after the fire of 1146, the monks had established granges at Sutton, Cayton, Cowton Moor, Warsill, Dacre and Aldburgh all within 6 mi (10 km) of Fountains. In the 1140s the water mill was built on the abbey site making it possible for the grain from the granges to be brought to the abbey for milling.Tannery waste from this time has been excavated on the site.

Further estates were assembled in two phases, between 1140 and 1160 then 1174 and 1175, from piecemeal acquisitions of land. Some of the lands were grants from benefactors but others were purchased from gifts of money to the abbey. Roger de Mowbray granted vast areas of Nidderdale and William de Percy and his tenants granted substantial estates in Craven which included Malham Moor and the fishery in Malham Tarn. After 1203 the abbots consolidated the abbey's lands by renting out more distant areas that the monks could not easily farm themselves, and exchanging and purchasing lands that complemented their existing estates. Fountains' holdings both in Yorkshire and beyond had reached their maximum extent by 1265, when they were an efficient and very profitable estate. Their estates were linked in a network of individual granges which provided staging posts to the most distant ones. They had urban properties in York, Yarm, Grimsby, Scarborough and Boston from which to conduct export and market trading and their other commercial interests included mining, quarrying, iron-smelting, fishing and milling.

The Battle of Bannockburn in 1314 was a factor that led to a downturn in the prosperity of the abbey in the early fourteenth century. Areas of the north of England as far south as York were looted by the Scots. Then the number of lay-brothers being recruited to the order reduced considerably. The abbey chose to take advantage of the relaxation of the edict on leasing property that had been enacted by the General Chapter of the order in 1208 and leased some of their properties. Others were staffed by hired labour and remained in hand under the supervision of bailiffs. In 1535 Fountains had an interest in 138 vills and the total taxable income of the Fountains estate was £1,115, making it the richest Cistercian monastery in England.

After the Dissolution

 

The Gresham family crest

The Abbey buildings and over 500 acres (200 ha) of land were sold by the Crown, on 1 October 1540, to Sir Richard Gresham, at the time a Member of Parliament and former Lord Mayor of London, the father of Sir Thomas Gresham. It was Richard Gresham who had supplied Cardinal Wolsey with the tapestries for his new house of Hampton Court and who paid for the Cardinal's funeral.

Gresham sold some of the fabric of the site, stone, timber, lead, as building materials to help to defray the cost of purchase. The site was acquired in 1597 by Sir Stephen Proctor, who used stone from the monastic complex to build Fountains Hall. Between 1627 and 1767 the estate was owned by the Messenger family who sold it to William Aislaby who was responsible for combining it with the Studley Royal Estate.

 

Burials

 

Roger de Mowbray, 1st Baron Mowbray

John de Mowbray, 2nd Baron Mowbray

Abbot Marmaduke Huby (d. 1526)

Rose (daughter of Richard de Clare, 6th Earl of Gloucester), wife of Roger de Mowbray, 1st Baron Mowbray

Henry de Percy, 1st Baron Percy

William II de Percy, 3rd feudal baron of Topcliffe

Becoming a World Heritage Site

The archaeological excavation of the site was begun under the supervision of John Richard Walbran, a Ripon antiquary who, in 1846, had published a paper On the Necessity of clearing out the Conventual Church of Fountains.In 1966 the Abbey was placed in the guardianship of the Department of the Environment and the estate was purchased by the West Riding County Council who transferred ownership to the North Yorkshire County Council in 1974. The National Trust bought the 674-acre (273 ha) Fountains Abbey and Studley Royal estate from North Yorkshire County Council in 1983. In 1986 the parkland in which the abbey is situated and the abbey was designated a World Heritage Site by UNESCO. It was recognised for fulfilling the criteria of being a masterpiece of human creative genius, and an outstanding example of a type of building or architectural or technological ensemble or landscape which illustrates significant stages in human history. Fountains Abbey is owned by the National Trust and maintained by English Heritage. The trust owns Studley Royal Park, Fountains Hall, to which there is partial public access, and St Mary's Church, designed by William Burges and built around 1873, all of which are significant features of the World Heritage Site.

The Porter's Lodge, which was once the gatehouse to the abbey, houses a modern exhibition area with displays about the history of Fountains Abbey and how the monks lived.

In January 2010, Fountains Abbey and Studley Royal became two of the first National Trust properties to be included in Google Street View, using the Google Trike.

 

Film location

 

Fountains Abbey was used as a film location by Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark for their single "Maid of Orleans (The Waltz Joan of Arc)" during the cold winter of December 1981. In 1980, Hollywood also came to the site to film the final scenes to the film Omen III: The Final Conflict.Other productions filmed on location at the abbey are the films Life at the Top, The Secret Garden, The History Boys, TV series Flambards, A History of Britain, Terry Jones' Medieval Lives, Cathedral, Antiques Roadshow and the game show Treasure Hunt. The BBC Television series 'Gunpowder' (2017) used Fountains Abbey as a location.

Approximately 6 weeks.

Fo Guang Shan Hsi Lai Temple (Chinese: 佛光山西來寺; pinyin: Fóguāngshān Xīlái Sì; approximate pronunciation She Lye) is a traditional Chinese Buddhist mountain monastery in the United States. It is located on the foothill region of Hacienda Heights, California, USA, a suburb of Los Angeles County. The name "Hsi Lai" means Coming West in the sense of the "Great Buddhadharma Coming West."

The temple is affiliated with one of Taiwan's largest religious organizations, the Fo Guang Shan Buddhist order. It is one of the first overseas branch temples, and is often called the "Western torch of Dharma" by order members. Hsi Lai was the site of the founding of Buddha's Light International Association, established in 1991. The temple, like its mother temple in Taiwan, practices Humanistic Buddhism, which incorporates all of the eight traditional schools of Chinese Buddhism - especially the Linji Chan and Pure Land schools - to provide guidance deemed most useful to modern life.

 

Kung Hei Fat Choi!

Approximately 1600 calories/loaf, but it's really hard to restrain myself once I start eating.

Hong Kong Transport

 

Motorbikes | Motorcycles | Scooters | Tricycles - All Brands

 

There are approximately 75,000 - 82,000 (ish) Licenced | Registered motorcycles, scooters and tricycles in Hong Kong, it never really changes much and dealers keep large stocks of popular models for immediate delivery due to heavy demand - The Transport Department classifies motorcycles and scooters as the same type of vehicle, personally I prefer the term motorbikes rather than motorcycles .....and yes, Hong Konger‛s love fast bikes.

 

There is nothing at all unusual about the popularity of motorcycles in Hong Kong, big powerful bikes are a lot more popular than the entry level 125cc and 250cc bikes simply because here you can get a motorcycle from all the major brands that do 190mph + and 0 - 60mph in 2.8 seconds, fast enough to outperform most supercars and even hypercars in Hong Kong and at a fraction of the price of a typical supercar, it is an easy sale. Scooters, well they are popular for food delivery companies!

 

There are over 125 brands of motorcycles, scooters and trikes for sale in Hong Kong

 

Motorbikes - the top 7 selling brands of motorbikes as far as I can determine in Hong Kong are as follows

 

Honda ✚ Yamaha ✚ Suzuki ✚ Kawasaki ✚ Ducati ✚ Harley Davidson ✚ BMW

 

Scooters - the top 5 selling brands of scooters as far as I can determine in Hong Kong are as follows :

 

Kymco ✚ Sym ✚ Piaggio ✚ San Yang ✚ Vespa

 

Tricycles - the top 5 selling brands of tricycles | trikes as far as I can determine in Hong Kong are as follows :

 

Adiva ✚ BRP ✚ Gilera ✚ Paiggio ✚ Harley Davidson

 

All the numerous biker clubs are out in force on Sunday‛s when weather permits! It is not unusual to see 50+ big bikes in formation on country roads on Hong Kong Island and the New Territories

 

(Source of statistics - The Transport Department of the Hong Kong Government)

 

☛.... and if you want to read about my views on Hong Kong, then go to my blog, link below

 

✚ www.j3consultantshongkong.com/j3c-blog

 

☛ Photography is simply a hobby for me, I do NOT sell my images and all of my images can be FREELY downloaded from this site in the original upload image size or 5 other sizes, please note that you DO NOT have to ask for permission to download and use any of my images!

Approximate Focus Distance : 8.45m

 

Canon EF 600mm f/4L IS USM Lens

ISO Speed 1600

Aperture : f/7.1

Exposure : 1/125 secs

Exposure Bias : -1/3 EV

Focal Length : 600mm

Eggs of western hemlock looper (Lambdina fiscillaria). Magnification approximately X 16.

 

Photo by: Wally C. Guy

Date: November 1961

 

Credit: USDA Forest Service, Region 6, State and Private Forestry, Forest Health Protection.

Source: Division of Timber Management, Insect and Disease Control Branch Collection; Regional Office, Portland, Oregon.

Image: ID-217

 

Image provided by USDA Forest Service, Region 6, State and Private Forestry, Forest Health Protection: www.fs.usda.gov/main/r6/forest-grasslandhealth

New Jersey State Troopers distributed approximately 560 coats to students of the Elizabeth Public Schools, during their 7th Annual Coat Drive on January 18th and 19th.

The donations, collections and distribution of coats to our student's were made possible through the tremendous assistance and collaboration with: Elizabeth Public Schools team members, Wakefern, Elizabeth Police and Fire Department, Hispanic Law Enforcement Association of Union County (HLEAUC), New Jersey Latin-American Trooper's Society (NJLATS), At Heart's Length, Pepsi, Cummins, Target of Linden and Mario's Pizzeria of Perth Amboy, along with community friends and families. Retail companies that assisted with the coat drive included: Target located at Aviation Plaza in Linden, Macy's and Sears of Woodbridge Center Mall located in Woodbridge and BJ's located in Edison.

The annual community outreach event is reflective of the efforts Troopers make throughout the year, to have a significant and memorable impact on the communities they serve.

 

Once again, the heartfelt generosity of the New Jersey State Troopers and their partners, will help ensure Elizabeth Public Schools students stay warm during this especially cold winter season.

The project, Ceil, places a laser (approximately 10 ft above the Stone Arch Bridge) that continuously sweeps across a horizontal plane over the Mississippi River. The effect of it would be to provide an invisible canopy across the space, its only consistently perceptible clue a horizontal line drawn across the urban edifices and park trees where the laser touches. The only time the canopy or ceiling would become apparent would be when particulates pass through the beam. This may occur frequently or infrequently depending on occurrences of natural phenomena (spray, fog, dust) or infrastructural residues (steam from power plants, sewers) or provided by individuals (smokers, hot breath or strategically placed fog machines).

 

Photograph courtesy the artist.

 

northernspark.org/projects/ceil.html?org=p#&panel1-4

This year’s convention featured a wide variety of gaming attractions, including foam-padded swordplay, board and card games, video game tournaments and events, a Diplomacy Tournament, live action role-play, as well as exhibits from various gaming companies and concessions.

These dinos were better than anything the Natural History Museum currently has

Black Dolerite (also called Diabase) present as an intrusion in to the ancient Lewisian gneiss (approximately 1,800 million years old) near Rhiconich in north-west Scotland. Pink granite pegmatites then intruded in to the dolerite to produce this amazing natural work of art!

      

Approximately 1,000 protesters rallied in downtown Louisville, Kentucky November 10, 2016 to register their concern about harmful rhetoric used by president-elect Trump and the consequences it may produce in his emboldened followers.

Approximately 1993

Approximately 175 Airmen from Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst, N.J. marched in New York City’s annual Veterans Day parade on Nov. 11, 2014. The Airmen spanned the enlisted and officer ranks and included Active, Reserve and Guard members from the 87th ABW, 514th AMW, 305th AMW, 108th Wing and the U.S. Air Force Expeditionary Center. The parade, organized in New York since 1929, has over 25, 000 participants and runs for approximately five hours on 5th Avenue from 26th Street north to 52nd Street. (U.S. Air National Guard Photo by Tech. Sgt. Carl Clegg/Released)

Approximately 400 attendees participated in the COD Cares 2015 Fall Day of Action and Pumpkin Party.

Angkor is a region of Cambodia that served as the seat of the Khmer Empire, which flourished from approximately the 9th to 15th centuries. The word Angkor is derived from the Sanskrit nagara, meaning "city". The Angkorian period began in AD 802, when the Khmer Hindu monarch Jayavarman II declared himself a "universal monarch" and "god-king", and lasted until the late 14th century, first falling under Ayutthayan suzerainty in 1351. A Khmer rebellion resulted in the 1431 sacking of Angkor by Ayutthaya, causing its population to migrate south to Longvek.

 

The ruins of Angkor are located amid forests and farmland to the north of the Great Lake (Tonlé Sap) and south of the Kulen Hills, near modern-day Siem Reap city, in Siem Reap Province. The temples of the Angkor area number over one thousand, ranging in scale from nondescript piles of brick rubble scattered through rice fields to the magnificent Angkor Wat, said to be the world's largest single religious monument. Many of the temples at Angkor have been restored, and together, they comprise the most significant site of Khmer architecture. Visitor numbers approach two million annually, and the entire expanse, including Angkor Wat and Angkor Thom is collectively protected as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. This popularity of the site among tourists presents multiple challenges to the preservation of the ruins.

 

In 2007, an international team of researchers using satellite photographs and other modern techniques concluded that Angkor had been the largest preindustrial city in the world, with an elaborate infrastructure system connecting an urban sprawl of at least 1,000 square kilometres to the well-known temples at its core. The closest rival to Angkor, the Mayan city of Tikal in Guatemala, was between 100 and 150 square kilometres in total size. Although its population remains a topic of research and debate, newly identified agricultural systems in the Angkor area may have supported up to one million people.

 

The Angkorian period may be said to have begun shortly after 800 AD, when the Khmer King Jayavarman II announced the independence of Kambujadesa (Cambodia) from Java and established his capital of Hariharalaya (now known as Roluos) at the northern end of Tonlé Sap. Through a program of military campaigns, alliances, marriages and land grants, he achieved a unification of the country bordered by China to the north, Champa (now Central Vietnam) to the east, the ocean to the south and a place identified by a stone inscription as "the land of cardamoms and mangoes" to the west. In 802, Jayavarman articulated his new status by declaring himself "universal monarch" (chakravartin) and, in a move that was to be imitated by his successors and that linked him to the cult of Siva, taking on the epithet of "god-king" (devaraja). Before Jayavarman, Cambodia had consisted of a number of politically independent principalities collectively known to the Chinese by the names Funan and Chenla.

 

In 889, Yasovarman ascended to the throne. A great king and an accomplished builder, he was celebrated by one inscription as "a lion-man; he tore the enemy with the claws of his grandeur; his teeth were his policies; his eyes were the Veda." Near the old capital of Hariharalaya, Yasovarman constructed a new city, called Yasodharapura. In the tradition of his predecessors, he also constructed a massive reservoir called baray. The significance of such reservoirs has been debated by modern scholars, some of whom have seen in them a means of irrigating rice fields, and others of whom have regarded them as religiously charged symbols of the great mythological oceans surrounding Mount Meru, the abode of the gods. The mountain, in turn, was represented by an elevated temple, in which the "god-king" was represented by a lingam. In accordance with this cosmic symbolism, Yasovarman built his central temple on a low hill known as Phnom Bakheng, surrounding it with a moat fed from the baray. He also built numerous other Hindu temples and ashrams, or retreats for ascetics.

 

Over the next 300 years, between 900 and 1200, the Khmer Empire produced some of the world's most magnificent architectural masterpieces in the area known as Angkor. Most are concentrated in an area approximately 24 km east to west and 8.0 km north to south, although the Angkor Archaeological Park, which administers the area, includes sites as far away as Kbal Spean, about 48 km to the north. Some 72 major temples or other buildings are found within this area, and the remains of several hundred additional minor temple sites are scattered throughout the landscape beyond. Because of the dispersed, low-density nature of the medieval Khmer settlement pattern, Angkor lacks a formal boundary, and its extent is therefore difficult to determine. However, a specific area of at least 1,000 qkm beyond the major temples is defined by a complex system of infrastructure, including roads and canals that indicate a high degree of connectivity and functional integration with the urban core. In terms of spatial extent (although not in terms of population), this makes it the largest urban agglomeration in human history prior to the Industrial Revolution, easily surpassing the nearest claim, that of the Mayan city of Tikal.

 

The principal temple of the Angkorian region, Angkor Wat, was built between 1113 and 1150 by King Suryavarman II. Suryavarman ascended to the throne after prevailing in a battle with a rival prince. An inscription says that, in the course of combat, Suryavarman leapt onto his rival's war elephant and killed him, just as the mythical bird-man Garuda slays a serpent.

* Approximately 66 calories per 3 1/2 ounce serving

* Main Nutrients: Vitamin A, C and Potassium

* It has a subtle tase of banana and lime. Can be cut into wedges and eaten with a spoon or used in desserts mixed with ice cream.

Approximate Focus Distance : 8.45m

 

Canon EF 600mm f/4L IS USM Lens

ISO Speed 1250

Aperture : f/7.1

Exposure : 1/250 secs

Exposure Bias : -1/3 EV

Focal Length : 600mm

APPROXIMATE RELEASE DATE: 1995-2002

IMPORTANT NOTES: This outfit was included in the Bitty Baby Starter Set from 1995 to 2003. From 1995 to 1999 this outfit was called the Sunny Day Play Set. It was rebranded as the Fun in the Sun Set in 2000.

 

PERSONAL FUN FACT: This was one of the outfits that made me covet a Bitty Baby doll when I was young. What I love most about the older Bitty Baby items, is how realistic they looked (that's also why I am partial to Our New Baby things). I remember wanting this outfit once I had a Bitty Baby doll in 2001. I can't remember if I thought it was discontinued by that time, or if I simply never got around to ordering it. We didn't have the internet at home, so I was at the mercy of what was featured in catalogues when we were ordering American Girl stuff. Often, there were items that were still available, but simply not included in the printed catalogue. I was fortunate enough to find this set at my local flea market in 2013. It was one of the many things sold with my baby doll, named Jelly. I actually already had Bitty Bear's hat though! The year before, I found it in a bin of Barbie clothing I bought at the same flea market, which is also where I got Keesha's diaper! This outfit is amazing quality, and it looks super adorable on all of my babies. Kiki is my favorite model, however, since she is the same baby it was often advertised in it when I was growing up!

Approximate S wriggling on cibeunying bridge

Approximately 90 % of the population practice Buddhism in Myanmar, some 4 % Islam. This mosque is situated in Yangon. Photo: Hanna Öunap.

On Thursday, November 13, 2014 approximately 100 executives from the British, Chilean, French, German and Irish American Business Councils gathered to Meet the CEO of BDP at The Westin Hotel. BDP is one of the largest privately held global logistics providers in the world. It is a family owned, non-asset based firm with headquarters in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The Company is a recognized leader in the global shipping industry, with a total of 133 owned and joint venture offices, and an additional 195 offices in its Global Network group. These offices give BDP a presence in nearly 135 countries around the world, and employ approximately 4,000 supply chain professionals.

 

The honored guest, Richard J. Bolte, Jr., Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of BDP International spoke about BDP’s history and business practices. His formative experience at BDP centered on ocean exports and supply chain management, with particular emphasis on business operations. Mr. Bolte was Vice President of the company’s Northeast Region before taking the position of Chief Operating Officer. In 1996, he was named President of BDP International; in 2006, he became CEO following the passing of his father, BDP’s Founder and Chairman; and in 2013, he became Chairman of the Board.

 

During the past decade Mr. Bolte has been instrumental in the strategic development of BDP’s Global Network of wholly-owned subsidiaries and joint ventures in the Pacific Rim, Canada, Mexico, the UK, South America, the Middle East and Europe. Under his leadership during the past five years, BDP acquired logistics firms in Germany, France, Belgium and Italy; formed a strategic partnership in Japan; a joint venture in Qatar; and opened offices in China, Dubai, Korea and The Netherlands. In 2005, BDP acquired The Elite Group, a Houston-based logistics firm specializing in the chemical industry. With a keen sense of the changing dynamics of the logistics business environment, Mr. Bolte led the establishment of an independent supply chain consulting unit. Under the name Centrx, a BDP knowledge venture, the firm brings a diverse portfolio of strategic skill-sets to meet the growing demand for Lead Logistics Provider services and other process analyses and network design expertise among multi-national enterprises.

 

Mr. Bolte’s personal discussion of his family’s business; his detailed explanation of the global climate and trends; and how BDP has grown and changed with the times was fascinating. BDP’s success rests on a combination of factors, and in the CEO’s own words:

First, we listen to our customers, and then go the extra distance to provide the best and most appropriate service possible. Second, we continue to invest in our company with aggressive initiatives such as the global integration of our technologies and employee training, so we’re prepared to face tomorrow’s challenges and best serve our customers worldwide. Doing what’s right today while keeping our eye on the future is what keeps BDP moving forward in a positive direction.

 

The evening concluded with a dynamic question and answer session led by Mr. Bolte; a business card raffle draw for various exciting prizes, and networking.

Approximately 4.5 inches tall, made of 100% organic cotton yarn & thread. I think she’ll fit 1:12 scale dollhouse stuff. She is jointed, and made b my own original pattern.

Cattle (Bos taurus) are large, domesticated, bovid ungulates. They are prominent modern members of the subfamily Bovinae and the most widespread species of the genus Bos. Mature female cattle are referred to as cows and mature male cattle are referred to as bulls. Colloquially, young female cattle (heifers), young male cattle (bullocks), and castrated male cattle (steers) are also referred to as "cows".

 

Cattle are commonly raised as livestock for meat (beef or veal, see beef cattle), for milk and dairy products (see dairy cattle), and for hides, which are used to make leather. They are used as riding animals and draft animals (oxen or bullocks, which pull carts, plows and other implements). Another product of cattle is their dung, which can be used to create manure or fuel. In some regions, such as parts of India, cattle is considered as a sacred animal. Cattle, mostly small breeds such as the Miniature Zebu, are also kept as pets.

 

Different types of cattle are common to different geographic areas. Taurine cattle are found primarily in Europe and temperate areas of Asia, the Americas, and Australia. Zebus (also called indicine cattle) are found primarily in India and tropical areas of Asia, America, and Australia. Sanga cattle are found primarily in sub-Saharan Africa. These types (which are sometimes classified as separate species or subspecies) are further divided into over 1,000 recognized breeds.

 

Around 10,500 years ago, taurine cattle were domesticated from as few as 80 wild aurochs progenitors in central Anatolia, the Levant and Western Iran. A separate domestication event occurred in the Indian subcontinent, which gave rise to zebu. According to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), there are approximately 1.5 billion cattle in the world as of 2018. Cattle are the main source of greenhouse gas emissions from livestock, and are responsible for around 10% of global greenhouse gas emissions. In 2009, cattle became one of the first livestock animals to have a fully mapped genome.

 

Taxonomy

See also: Bos and Bovinae

 

Cattle were originally identified as three separate species: Bos taurus, the European or "taurine" cattle (including similar types from Africa and Asia); Bos indicus, the Indicine or "zebu"; and the extinct Bos primigenius, the aurochs. The aurochs is ancestral to both zebu and taurine cattle. They were later reclassified as one species, Bos taurus, with the aurochs (B. t. primigenius), zebu (B. t. indicus), and taurine (B. t. taurus) cattle as subspecies. However, this taxonomy is contentious and some sources prefer the separate species classification, such as the American Society of Mammalogists' Mammal Diversity Database.

 

Complicating the matter is the ability of cattle to interbreed with other closely related species. Hybrid individuals and even breeds exist, not only between taurine cattle and zebu (such as the sanga cattle (Bos taurus africanus x Bos indicus), but also between one or both of these and some other members of the genus Bos – yaks (the dzo or yattle[10]), banteng, and gaur. Hybrids such as the beefalo breed can even occur between taurine cattle and either species of bison, leading some authors to consider them part of the genus Bos, as well. The hybrid origin of some types may not be obvious – for example, genetic testing of the Dwarf Lulu breed, the only taurine-type cattle in Nepal, found them to be a mix of taurine cattle, zebu, and yak. However, cattle cannot be successfully hybridized with more distantly related bovines such as water buffalo or African buffalo.

 

The aurochs originally ranged throughout Europe, North Africa, and much of Asia. In historical times, its range became restricted to Europe, and the last known individual died in Mazovia, Poland, in about 1627. Breeders have attempted to recreate cattle of similar appearance to aurochs by crossing traditional types of domesticated cattle, creating the Heck cattle breed.

 

A group of taurine-type cattles exist in Africa. It is hotly debated whether they represent an independent domestication event or were the result of crossing taurines domesticated elsewhere with local aurochs, but it's clear that they are genetically quite distinct; some authors choose to name them as a separate subspecies, Bos taurus africanus. The only pure African taurine breeds remaining are the N'Dama, Kuri and some varieties of the West African Shorthorn.

 

Etymology

Cattle did not originate as the term for bovine animals. It was borrowed from Anglo-Norman catel, itself from medieval Latin capitale 'principal sum of money, capital', itself derived in turn from Latin caput 'head'. Cattle originally meant movable personal property, especially livestock of any kind, as opposed to real property (the land, which also included wild or small free-roaming animals such as chickens—they were sold as part of the land). The word is a variant of chattel (a unit of personal property) and closely related to capital in the economic sense. The term replaced earlier Old English feoh 'cattle, property', which survives today as fee (cf. German: Vieh, Dutch: vee, Gothic: faihu).

 

The word cow came via Anglo-Saxon cū (plural cȳ), from Common Indo-European gʷōus (genitive gʷowés) 'a bovine animal', cf. Persian: gâv, Sanskrit: go-, Welsh: buwch. The plural cȳ became ki or kie in Middle English, and an additional plural ending was often added, giving kine, kien, but also kies, kuin and others. This is the origin of the now archaic English plural, kine. The Scots language singular is coo or cou, and the plural is kye.

 

In older English sources such as the King James Version of the Bible, cattle refers to livestock, as opposed to deer which refers to wildlife. Wild cattle may refer to feral cattle or to undomesticated species of the genus Bos. Today, when used without any other qualifier, the modern meaning of cattle is usually restricted to domesticated bovines.

 

Terminology

 

In general, the same words are used in different parts of the world, but with minor differences in the definitions. The terminology described here contrasts the differences in definition between the United Kingdom and other British-influenced parts of the world such as Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Ireland and the United States.

 

An "intact" (i.e., not castrated) adult male is called a bull.

A father bull is called a sire with reference to his offspring.

An adult female that has had a calf (or two, depending on regional usage) is a cow. Steers and heifers are also colloquially referred to as cows.

A mother cow is called a dam with reference to her offspring. Often, mentions of dams imply cows kept in the herd for repeated breeding (as opposed to heifers or cows sold off sooner).

A young female before she has had a calf of her own and who is under three years of age is called a heifer. A young female that has had only one calf is occasionally called a first-calf heifer. Heiferettes are either first-calf heifers or a subset thereof without potential to become lineage dams, depending on whose definition is operative.

Young cattle (regardless of sex) are called calves until they are weaned, then weaners until they are a year old in some areas; in other areas, particularly with male beef cattle, they may be known as feeder calves or feeders. After that, they are referred to as yearlings or stirks if between one and two years of age.

Feeder cattle or store cattle are young cattle soon to be either backgrounded or sent to fattening, most especially those intended to be sold to someone else for finishing. In some regions, a distinction between stockers and feeders (by those names) is the distinction of backgrounding versus immediate sale to a finisher.

A castrated male is called a steer in the United States; older steers are often called bullocks in other parts of the world, but in North America this term refers to a young bull. Piker bullocks are micky bulls (uncastrated young male bulls) that were caught, castrated and then later lost. In Australia, the term Japanese ox is used for grain-fed steers in the weight range of 500 to 650 kg that are destined for the Japanese meat trade. In North America, draft cattle under four years old are called working steers. Improper or late castration on a bull results in it becoming a coarse steer known as a stag in Australia, Canada and New Zealand. In some countries, an incompletely castrated male is known also as a rig.

A castrated male (occasionally a female or in some areas a bull) kept for draft or riding purposes is called an ox (plural oxen); ox may also be used to refer to some carcass products from any adult cattle, such as ox-hide, ox-blood, oxtail, or ox-liver.

A springer is a cow or heifer close to calving.

In all cattle species, a female twin of a bull usually becomes an infertile partial intersex, and is called a freemartin.

A wild, young, unmarked bull is known as a micky in Australia.

An unbranded bovine of either sex is called a maverick in the US and Canada.

Neat (horned oxen, from which neatsfoot oil is derived), beef (young ox) and beefing (young animal fit for slaughtering) are obsolete terms, although poll, pollard and polled cattle are still terms in use for naturally hornless animals, or in some areas also for those that have been disbudded or dehorned.

Cattle raised for human consumption are called beef cattle. Within the American beef cattle industry, the older term beef (plural beeves) is still used to refer to an animal of either sex. Some Australian, Canadian, New Zealand and British people use the term beast.

Cattle bred specifically for milk production are called milking or dairy cattle; a cow kept to provide milk for one family may be called a house cow or milker. A fresh cow is a dairy term for a cow or first-calf heifer who has recently given birth, or "freshened."

The adjective applying to cattle in general is usually bovine. The terms bull, cow and calf are also used by extension to denote the sex or age of other large animals, including whales, hippopotamuses, camels, elk and elephants.

Various other terms for cattle or types thereof are historical; these include nowt, nolt, mart, and others.

Singular terminology issue

 

"Cattle" can only be used in the plural and not in the singular: it is a plurale tantum. Thus one may refer to "three cattle" or "some cattle", but not "one cattle". "One head of cattle" is a valid though periphrastic way to refer to one animal of indeterminate or unknown age and sex; otherwise no universally used single-word singular form of cattle exists in modern English, other than the sex- and age-specific terms such as cow, bull, steer and heifer. Historically, "ox" was not a sex-specific term for adult cattle, but generally this is now used only for working cattle, especially adult castrated males. The term is also incorporated into the names of other species, such as the musk ox and "grunting ox" (yak), and is used in some areas to describe certain cattle products such as ox-hide and oxtail.

 

Cow is in general use as a singular for the collective cattle. The word cow is easy to use when a singular is needed and the sex is unknown or irrelevant—when "there is a cow in the road", for example. Further, any herd of fully mature cattle in or near a pasture is statistically likely to consist mostly of cows, so the term is probably accurate even in the restrictive sense. Other than the few bulls needed for breeding, the vast majority of male cattle are castrated as calves and are used as oxen or slaughtered for meat before the age of three years. Thus, in a pastured herd, any calves or herd bulls usually are clearly distinguishable from the cows due to distinctively different sizes and clear anatomical differences. Merriam-Webster and Oxford Living Dictionaries recognize the sex-nonspecific use of cow as an alternate definition, whereas Collins and the OED do not.

 

Colloquially, more general nonspecific terms may denote cattle when a singular form is needed. Head of cattle is usually used only after a numeral. Australian, New Zealand and British farmers use the term beast or cattle beast. Bovine is also used in Britain. The term critter is common in the western United States and Canada, particularly when referring to young cattle. In some areas of the American South (particularly the Appalachian region), where both dairy and beef cattle are present, an individual animal was once called a "beef critter", though that term is becoming archaic.

 

Other terminology

Cattle raised for human consumption are called beef cattle. Within the beef cattle industry in parts of the United States, the term beef (plural beeves) is still used in its archaic sense to refer to an animal of either sex. Cows of certain breeds that are kept for the milk they give are called dairy cows or milking cows (formerly milch cows). Most young male offspring of dairy cows are sold for veal, and may be referred to as veal calves.

 

The term dogies is used to describe orphaned calves in the context of ranch work in the American West, as in "Keep them dogies moving". In some places, a cow kept to provide milk for one family is called a "house cow". Other obsolete terms for cattle include "neat" (this use survives in "neatsfoot oil", extracted from the feet and legs of cattle), and "beefing" (young animal fit for slaughter).

 

An onomatopoeic term for one of the most common sounds made by cattle is moo (also called lowing). There are a number of other sounds made by cattle, including calves bawling, and bulls bellowing. Bawling is most common for cows after weaning of a calf. The bullroarer makes a sound similar to a bull's territorial call.

 

Characteristics

Anatomy

 

Cattle are large quadrupedal ungulate mammals with cloven hooves. Most breeds have horns, which can be as large as the Texas Longhorn or small like a scur. Careful genetic selection has allowed polled (hornless) cattle to become widespread.

 

Digestive system

Further information: Digestive system of ruminants

Cattle are ruminants, meaning their digestive system is highly specialized to allow the consumption of difficult to digest plants as food. Cattle have one stomach with four compartments, the rumen, reticulum, omasum, and abomasum, with the rumen being the largest compartment. The reticulum, the smallest compartment, is known as the "honeycomb". The omasum's main function is to absorb water and nutrients from the digestible feed. The omasum is known as the "many plies". The abomasum is like the human stomach; this is why it is known as the "true stomach".

 

Cattle are known for regurgitating and re-chewing their food, known as cud chewing, like most ruminants. While the animal is feeding, the food is swallowed without being chewed and goes into the rumen for storage until the animal can find a quiet place to continue the digestion process. The food is regurgitated, a mouthful at a time, back up to the mouth, where the food, now called the cud, is chewed by the molars, grinding down the coarse vegetation to small particles. The cud is then swallowed again and further digested by specialized microorganisms in the rumen. These microbes are primarily responsible for decomposing cellulose and other carbohydrates into volatile fatty acids cattle use as their primary metabolic fuel. The microbes inside the rumen also synthesize amino acids from non-protein nitrogenous sources, such as urea and ammonia. As these microbes reproduce in the rumen, older generations die and their cells continue on through the digestive tract. These cells are then partially digested in the small intestines, allowing cattle to gain a high-quality protein source. These features allow cattle to thrive on grasses and other tough vegetation.

 

Reproduction

Further information: Bull § Reproductive anatomy

 

On farms it is very common to use artificial insemination (AI), a medically assisted reproduction technique consisting of the artificial deposition of semen in the female's genital tract. It is used in cases where the spermatozoa can not reach the fallopian tubes or by choice of the owner of the animal. It consists of transferring, to the uterine cavity, spermatozoa previously collected and processed, with the selection of morphologically more normal and mobile spermatozoa. Synchronization of cattle ovulation to benefit dairy farming may be accomplished via induced ovulation techniques.

 

Bulls become fertile at about seven months of age. Their fertility is closely related to the size of their testicles, and one simple test of fertility is to measure the circumference of the scrotum: a young bull is likely to be fertile once this reaches 28 centimetres (11 in); that of a fully adult bull may be over 40 centimetres (16 in).

 

A bull has a fibro-elastic penis. Given the small amount of erectile tissue, there is little enlargement after erection. The penis is quite rigid when non-erect, and becomes even more rigid during erection. Protrusion is not affected much by erection, but more by relaxation of the retractor penis muscle and straightening of the sigmoid flexure.

 

The gestation period for a cow is about nine months long. The secondary sex ratio – the ratio of male to female offspring at birth – is approximately 52:48, although it may be influenced by environmental and other factors. A cow's udder contains two pairs of mammary glands, (commonly referred to as teats) creating four "quarters". The front ones are referred to as fore quarters and the rear ones rear quarters.

 

Weight and lifespan

 

The weight of adult cattle varies, depending on the breed. Smaller kinds, such as Dexter and Jersey adults, range between 300 and 500 kg (600 and 1,000 lb). Large Continental breeds, such as Charolais, Marchigiana, Belgian Blue and Chianina adults range from 640 to 1,100 kg (1,400 to 2,500 lb). British breeds, such as Hereford, Angus, and Shorthorn, mature at 500 to 900 kg (1,000 to 2,000 lb), occasionally higher, particularly with Angus and Hereford. Bulls are larger than cows of the same breed by up to a few hundred kilograms. British Hereford cows weigh 600–800 kg (1,300–1,800 lb); the bulls weigh 1,000–1,200 kg (2,200–2,600 lb). Chianina bulls can weigh up to 1,500 kg (3,300 lb); British bulls, such as Angus and Hereford, can weigh as little as 900 kg (2,000 lb) and as much as 1,400 kg (3,000 lb).

 

The world record for the heaviest bull was 1,740 kg (3,840 lb), a Chianina named Donetto, when he was exhibited at the Arezzo show in 1955. The heaviest steer was eight-year-old 'Old Ben', a Shorthorn/​Hereford cross weighing in at 2,140 kg (4,720 lb) in 1910.

 

In the United States, the average weight of beef cattle has steadily increased, especially since the 1970s, requiring the building of new slaughterhouses able to handle larger carcasses. New packing plants in the 1980s stimulated a large increase in cattle weights. Before 1790 beef cattle averaged only 160 kg (350 lb) net; and thereafter weights climbed steadily.

 

A newborn calf's size can vary among breeds, but a typical calf weighs 25 to 45 kg (55 to 99 lb). Adult size and weight vary significantly among breeds and sex. Steers are generally slaughtered before reaching 750 kg (1,650 lb). Breeding stock may be allowed a longer lifespan, occasionally living as long as 25 years. The oldest recorded cow, Big Bertha, died at the age of 48 in 1993.

 

Cognition

In laboratory studies, young cattle are able to memorize the locations of several food sources and retain this memory for at least 8 hours, although this declined after 12 hours. Fifteen-month-old heifers learn more quickly than adult cows which have had either one or two calvings, but their longer-term memory is less stable. Mature cattle perform well in spatial learning tasks and have a good long-term memory in these tests. Cattle tested in a radial arm maze are able to remember the locations of high-quality food for at least 30 days. Although they initially learn to avoid low-quality food, this memory diminishes over the same duration. Under less artificial testing conditions, young cattle showed they were able to remember the location of feed for at least 48 days. Cattle can make an association between a visual stimulus and food within 1 day—memory of this association can be retained for 1 year, despite a slight decay.

 

Calves are capable of discrimination learning and adult cattle compare favourably with small mammals in their learning ability in the closed-field test.

 

They are also able to discriminate between familiar individuals, and among humans. Cattle can tell the difference between familiar and unfamiliar animals of the same species (conspecifics). Studies show they behave less aggressively toward familiar individuals when they are forming a new group. Calves can also discriminate between humans based on previous experience, as shown by approaching those who handled them positively and avoiding those who handled them aversively. Although cattle can discriminate between humans by their faces alone, they also use other cues such as the color of clothes when these are available.

 

In audio play-back studies, calves prefer their own mother's vocalizations compared to the vocalizations of an unfamiliar mother.

 

In laboratory studies using images, cattle can discriminate between images of the heads of cattle and other animal species. They are also able to distinguish between familiar and unfamiliar conspecifics. Furthermore, they are able to categorize images as familiar and unfamiliar individuals.

 

When mixed with other individuals, cloned calves from the same donor form subgroups, indicating that kin discrimination occurs and may be a basis of grouping behaviour. It has also been shown using images of cattle that both artificially inseminated and cloned calves have similar cognitive capacities of kin and non-kin discrimination.

 

Cattle can recognize familiar individuals. Visual individual recognition is a more complex mental process than visual discrimination. It requires the recollection of the learned idiosyncratic identity of an individual that has been previously encountered and the formation of a mental representation. By using two-dimensional images of the heads of one cow (face, profiles, 3⁄4 views), all the tested heifers showed individual recognition of familiar and unfamiliar individuals from their own breed. Furthermore, almost all the heifers recognized unknown individuals from different breeds, although this was achieved with greater difficulty. Individual recognition was most difficult when the visual features of the breed being tested were quite different from the breed in the image, for example, the breed being tested had no spots whereas the image was of a spotted breed.

 

Cattle use visual/brain lateralisation in their visual scanning of novel and familiar stimuli. Domestic cattle prefer to view novel stimuli with the left eye, i.e. using the right brain hemisphere (similar to horses, Australian magpies, chicks, toads and fish) but use the right eye, i.e. using the left hemisphere, for viewing familiar stimuli.

 

Senses

Cattle use all of the five widely recognized sensory modalities. These can assist in some complex behavioural patterns, for example, in grazing behaviour. Cattle eat mixed diets, but when given the opportunity, show a partial preference of approximately 70% clover and 30% grass. This preference has a diurnal pattern, with a stronger preference for clover in the morning, and the proportion of grass increasing towards the evening.

 

Vision

 

Vision is the dominant sense in cattle and they obtain almost 50% of their information visually.

 

Cattle are a prey animal and to assist predator detection, their eyes are located on the sides of their head rather than the front. This gives them a wide field of view of 330° but limits binocular vision (and therefore stereopsis) to 30° to 50° compared to 140° in humans. This means they have a blind spot directly behind them. Cattle have good visual acuity, but compared to humans, their visual accommodation is poor.

 

Cattle have two kinds of color receptors in the cone cells of their retinas. This means that cattle are dichromatic, as are most other non-primate land mammals. There are two to three rods per cone in the fovea centralis but five to six near the optic papilla. Cattle can distinguish long wavelength colors (yellow, orange and red) much better than the shorter wavelengths (blue, grey and green). Calves are able to discriminate between long (red) and short (blue) or medium (green) wavelengths, but have limited ability to discriminate between the short and medium. They also approach handlers more quickly under red light. Whilst having good color sensitivity, it is not as good as humans or sheep.

 

A common misconception about cattle (particularly bulls) is that they are enraged by the color red (something provocative is often said to be "like a red flag to a bull"). This is a myth. In bullfighting, it is the movement of the red flag or cape that irritates the bull and incites it to charge.

 

Taste

Cattle have a well-developed sense of taste and can distinguish the four primary tastes (sweet, salty, bitter and sour). They possess around 20,000 taste buds. The strength of taste perception depends on the individual's current food requirements. They avoid bitter-tasting foods (potentially toxic) and have a marked preference for sweet (high calorific value) and salty foods (electrolyte balance). Their sensitivity to sour-tasting foods helps them to maintain optimal ruminal pH.

 

Plants have low levels of sodium and cattle have developed the capacity of seeking salt by taste and smell. If cattle become depleted of sodium salts, they show increased locomotion directed to searching for these. To assist in their search, the olfactory and gustatory receptors able to detect minute amounts of sodium salts increase their sensitivity as biochemical disruption develops with sodium salt depletion.

 

Hearing

Cattle hearing ranges from 23 Hz to 35 kHz. Their frequency of best sensitivity is 8 kHz and they have a lowest threshold of −21 db (re 20 μN/m−2), which means their hearing is more acute than horses (lowest threshold of 7 db). Sound localization acuity thresholds are an average of 30°. This means that cattle are less able to localise sounds compared to goats (18°), dogs (8°) and humans (0.8°). Because cattle have a broad foveal fields of view covering almost the entire horizon, they may not need very accurate locus information from their auditory systems to direct their gaze to a sound source.

 

Vocalizations are an important mode of communication amongst cattle and can provide information on the age, sex, dominance status and reproductive status of the caller. Calves can recognize their mothers using vocalizations; vocal behaviour may play a role by indicating estrus and competitive display by bulls.

 

Olfaction and gustation

 

Cattle have a range of odoriferous glands over their body including interdigital, infraorbital, inguinal and sebaceous glands, indicating that olfaction probably plays a large role in their social life. Both the primary olfactory system using the olfactory bulbs, and the secondary olfactory system using the vomeronasal organ are used. This latter olfactory system is used in the flehmen response. There is evidence that when cattle are stressed, this can be recognised by other cattle and this is communicated by alarm substances in the urine. The odour of dog faeces induces behavioural changes prior to cattle feeding, whereas the odours of urine from either stressed or non-stressed conspecifics and blood have no effect.

 

In the laboratory, cattle can be trained to recognise conspecific individuals using olfaction only.

 

In general, cattle use their sense of smell to "expand" on information detected by other sensory modalities. However, in the case of social and reproductive behaviours, olfaction is a key source of information.

 

Touch

Cattle have tactile sensations detected mainly by mechanoreceptors, thermoreceptors and nociceptors in the skin and muscles. These are used most frequently when cattle explore their environment.

 

Magnetoreception

There is conflicting evidence for magnetoreception in cattle. One study reported that resting and grazing cattle tend to align their body axes in the geomagnetic north–south direction. In a follow-up study, cattle exposed to various magnetic fields directly beneath or in the vicinity of power lines trending in various magnetic directions exhibited distinct patterns of alignment. However, in 2011, a group of Czech researchers reported their failed attempt to replicate the finding using Google Earth images.

 

Behavior

Under natural conditions, calves stay with their mother until weaning at 8 to 11 months. Heifer and bull calves are equally attached to their mothers in the first few months of life. Cattle are considered to be "hider" type animals, utilizing secluded areas more in the hours before calving and continued to use it more for the hour after calving. Cows that gave birth for the first time show a higher incidence of abnormal maternal behavior.

 

In one study, beef-calves reared on the range were observed to suckle an average of 5.0 times every 24 hours with an average total time of 46 min spent suckling. There was a diurnal rhythm in suckling activity with peaks between 05:00–07:00, 10:00–13:00 and 17:00–21:00.

 

Reproductive behavior

Semi-wild Highland cattle heifers first give birth at 2 or 3 years of age, and the timing of birth is synchronized with increases in natural food quality. Average calving interval is 391 days, and calving mortality within the first year of life is 5%.

 

Dominance and leadership

One study showed that over a 4-year period, dominance relationships within a herd of semi-wild highland cattle were very firm. There were few overt aggressive conflicts and the majority of disputes were settled by agonistic (non-aggressive, competitive) behaviors that involved no physical contact between opponents (e.g. threatening and spontaneous withdrawing). Such agonistic behavior reduces the risk of injury. Dominance status depended on age and sex, with older animals generally being dominant to young ones and males dominant to females. Young bulls gained superior dominance status over adult cows when they reached about 2 years of age.

 

As with many animal dominance hierarchies, dominance-associated aggressiveness does not correlate with rank position, but is closely related to rank distance between individuals.

 

Dominance is maintained in several ways. Cattle often engage in mock fights where they test each other's strength in a non-aggressive way. Licking is primarily performed by subordinates and received by dominant animals. Mounting is a playful behavior shown by calves of both sexes and by bulls and sometimes by cows in estrus, however, this is not a dominance related behavior as has been found in other species.

 

The horns of cattle are "honest signals" used in mate selection. Furthermore, horned cattle attempt to keep greater distances between themselves and have fewer physical interactions than hornless cattle. This leads to more stable social relationships.

 

In calves, the frequency of agonistic behavior decreases as space allowance increases, but this does not occur for changes in group size. However, in adult cattle, the number of agonistic encounters increases as the group size increases.

 

Grazing behavior

When grazing, cattle vary several aspects of their bite, i.e. tongue and jaw movements, depending on characteristics of the plant they are eating. Bite area decreases with the density of the plants but increases with their height. Bite area is determined by the sweep of the tongue; in one study observing 750-kilogram (1,650 lb) steers, bite area reached a maximum of approximately 170 cm2 (30 sq in). Bite depth increases with the height of the plants. By adjusting their behavior, cattle obtain heavier bites in swards that are tall and sparse compared with short, dense swards of equal mass/area. Cattle adjust other aspects of their grazing behavior in relation to the available food; foraging velocity decreases and intake rate increases in areas of abundant palatable forage.

 

Cattle avoid grazing areas contaminated by the faeces of other cattle more strongly than they avoid areas contaminated by sheep, but they do not avoid pasture contaminated by rabbit faeces.

 

Temperament and emotions

 

In cattle, temperament can affect production traits such as carcass and meat quality or milk yield as well as affecting the animal's overall health and reproduction. Cattle temperament is defined as "the consistent behavioral and physiological difference observed between individuals in response to a stressor or environmental challenge and is used to describe the relatively stable difference in the behavioral predisposition of an animal, which can be related to psychobiological mechanisms". Generally, cattle temperament is assumed to be multidimensional. Five underlying categories of temperament traits have been proposed:

 

shyness–boldness

exploration–avoidance

activity

aggressiveness

sociability

In a study on Holstein–Friesian heifers learning to press a panel to open a gate for access to a food reward, the researchers also recorded the heart rate and behavior of the heifers when moving along the race towards the food. When the heifers made clear improvements in learning, they had higher heart rates and tended to move more vigorously along the race. The researchers concluded this was an indication that cattle may react emotionally to their own learning improvement.

 

Negative emotional states are associated with a bias toward negative responses towards ambiguous cues in judgement tasks. After separation from their mothers, Holstein calves showed such a cognitive bias indicative of low mood. A similar study showed that after hot-iron disbudding (dehorning), calves had a similar negative bias indicating that post-operative pain following this routine procedure results in a negative change in emotional state.

 

In studies of visual discrimination, the position of the ears has been used as an indicator of emotional state. When cattle are stressed other cattle can tell by the chemicals released in their urine.

 

Cattle are very gregarious and even short-term isolation is considered to cause severe psychological stress. When Aubrac and Friesian heifers are isolated, they increase their vocalizations and experience increased heart rate and plasma cortisol concentrations. These physiological changes are greater in Aubracs. When visual contact is re-instated, vocalizations rapidly decline, regardless of the familiarity of the returning cattle, however, heart rate decreases are greater if the returning cattle are familiar to the previously isolated individual. Mirrors have been used to reduce stress in isolated cattle.

 

Sleep

Further information: Sleep in non-human animals and Cow tipping

The average sleep time of a domestic cow is about 4 hours a day. Cattle do have a stay apparatus, but do not sleep standing up; they lie down to sleep deeply. In spite of the urban legend, cows cannot be tipped over by people pushing on them.

 

Genetics

Further information: Bovine genome

On 24 April 2009, edition of the journal Science, a team of researchers led by the National Institutes of Health and the US Department of Agriculture reported having mapped the bovine genome. The scientists found cattle have about 22,000 genes, and 80% of their genes are shared with humans, and they share about 1000 genes with dogs and rodents, but are not found in humans. Using this bovine "HapMap", researchers can track the differences between the breeds that affect the quality of meat and milk yields.

 

Behavioral traits of cattle can be as heritable as some production traits, and often, the two can be related. The heritability of fear varies markedly in cattle from low (0.1) to high (0.53); such high variation is also found in pigs and sheep, probably due to differences in the methods used. The heritability of temperament (response to isolation during handling) has been calculated as 0.36 and 0.46 for habituation to handling. Rangeland assessments show that the heritability of aggressiveness in cattle is around 0.36.

 

Quantitative trait loci (QTLs) have been found for a range of production and behavioral characteristics for both dairy and beef cattle.

 

Domestication and husbandry

 

Cattle occupy a unique role in human history, having been domesticated since at least the early neolithic age.

 

Archaeozoological and genetic data indicate that cattle were first domesticated from wild aurochs (Bos primigenius) approximately 10,500 years ago. There were two major areas of domestication: one in the Near East (specifically central Anatolia, the Levant and Western Iran), giving rise to the taurine line, and a second in the area that is now Pakistan, resulting in the indicine line. Modern mitochondrial DNA variation indicates the taurine line may have arisen from as few as 80 aurochs tamed in the upper reaches of Mesopotamia near the villages of Çayönü Tepesi in what is now southeastern Turkey and Dja'de el-Mughara in what is now northern Syria.

 

Although European cattle are largely descended from the taurine lineage, gene flow from African cattle (partially of indicine origin) contributed substantial genomic components to both southern European cattle breeds and their New World descendants. A study on 134 breeds showed that modern taurine cattle originated from Africa, Asia, North and South America, Australia, and Europe. Some researchers have suggested that African taurine cattle are derived from a third independent domestication from North African aurochsen.

 

Usage as money

As early as 9000 BC both grain and cattle were used as money or as barter (the first grain remains found, considered to be evidence of pre-agricultural practice date to 17,000 BC). Some evidence also exists to suggest that other animals, such as camels and goats, may have been used as currency in some parts of the world. One of the advantages of using cattle as currency is that it allows the seller to set a fixed price. It even created the standard pricing. For example, two chickens were traded for one cow as cows were deemed to be more valuable than chickens.

 

Modern husbandry

Further information: Animal husbandry

 

Cattle are often raised by allowing herds to graze on the grasses of large tracts of rangeland. Raising cattle in this manner allows the use of land that might be unsuitable for growing crops. The most common interactions with cattle involve daily feeding, cleaning and milking. Many routine husbandry practices involve ear tagging, dehorning, loading, medical operations, artificial insemination, vaccinations and hoof care, as well as training for agricultural shows and preparations. Also, some cultural differences occur in working with cattle; the cattle husbandry of Fulani men rests on behavioural techniques, whereas in Europe, cattle are controlled primarily by physical means, such as fences. Breeders use cattle husbandry to reduce M. bovis infection susceptibility by selective breeding and maintaining herd health to avoid concurrent disease.

 

Cattle are farmed for beef, veal, dairy, and leather. They are less commonly used for conservation grazing, or to maintain grassland for wildlife, such as in Epping Forest, England. They are often used in some of the most wild places for livestock. Depending on the breed, cattle can survive on hill grazing, heaths, marshes, moors and semidesert. Modern cattle are more commercial than older breeds and, having become more specialized, are less versatile. For this reason, many smaller farmers still favor old breeds, such as the Jersey dairy breed. In Portugal, Spain, southern France and some Latin American countries, bulls are used in the activity of bullfighting; In many other countries bullfighting is illegal. Other activities such as bull riding are seen as part of a rodeo, especially in North America. Bull-leaping, a central ritual in Bronze Age Minoan culture, still exists in southwestern France. In modern times, cattle are also entered into agricultural competitions. These competitions can involve live cattle or cattle carcases in hoof and hook events.

 

In terms of food intake by humans, consumption of cattle is less efficient than of grain or vegetables with regard to land use, and hence cattle grazing consumes more area than such other agricultural production when raised on grains. Nonetheless, cattle and other forms of domesticated animals can sometimes help to use plant resources in areas not easily amenable to other forms of agriculture.

 

Feral cattle

Feral cattle are defined as being 'cattle that are not domesticated or cultivated'. Populations of feral cattle are known to come from and exist in: Australia, United States of America, Colombia, Argentina, Spain, France and many islands, including New Guinea, Hawaii (see Hawaiian wild cattle), Galapagos, Juan Fernández Islands, Hispaniola (Dominican Republic and Haiti), Tristan da Cunha and Île Amsterdam (see Amsterdam Island cattle), two islands of Kuchinoshima and Kazura Island next to Naru Island in Japan. Chillingham cattle is sometimes regarded as a feral breed. Aleutian wild cattles can be found on the Aleutian Islands. The "Kinmen cattle" which are predominantly found on Kinmen Island, Taiwan is mostly domesticated while smaller portion of the population is believed to live in the wild due to accidental releases.

 

Other notable examples include cattle in the vicinity of Hong Kong (in the Shing Mun Country Park, among Sai Kung District and Lantau Island and on Grass Island), and semi-feral animals in Yangmingshan, Taiwan.

 

Economy

 

The meat of adult cattle is known as beef, and that of calves is veal. Other animal parts are also used as food products, including blood, liver, kidney, heart and oxtail. Cattle also produce milk, and dairy cattle are specifically bred to produce the large quantities of milk processed and sold for human consumption. Cattle today are the basis of a multibillion-dollar industry worldwide. The international trade in beef for 2000 was over $30 billion and represented only 23% of world beef production. Approximately 300 million cattle, including dairy cattle, are slaughtered each year for food. The production of milk, which is also made into cheese, butter, yogurt, and other dairy products, is comparable in economic size to beef production, and provides an important part of the food supply for many of the world's people. Cattle hides, used for leather to make shoes, couches and clothing, are another widespread product. Cattle remain broadly used as draft animals in many developing countries, such as India. Cattle are also used in some sporting games, including rodeo and bullfighting.

 

Meat production

Cattle meat production (kt)

Country2008200920102011

Argentina3132337826302497

Australia2132212426302420

Brazil9024939591159030

China5841606062446182

Germany1199119012051170

Japan520517515500

US12163118911204611988

Source: Helgi Library, World Bank, FAOSTAT

 

About a quarter of the world's meat comes from cattle.

 

Dairy

Main articles: Dairy cattle, Dairy farming, and Dairy

 

Certain breeds of cattle, such as the Holstein-Friesian, are used to produce milk, which can be processed into dairy products such as milk, cheese or yogurt. Dairy cattle are usually kept on specialized dairy farms designed for milk production. Most cows are milked twice per day, with milk processed at a dairy, which may be onsite at the farm or the milk may be shipped to a dairy plant for eventual sale of a dairy product. Lactation is induced in heifers and spayed cows by a combination of physical and psychological stimulation, by drugs, or by a combination of those methods. For mother cows to continue producing milk, they give birth to one calf per year. If the calf is male, it generally is slaughtered at a young age to produce veal. They will continue to produce milk until three weeks before birth. Over the last fifty years, dairy farming has become more intensive to increase the yield of milk produced by each cow. The Holstein-Friesian is the breed of dairy cow most common in the UK, Europe and the United States. It has been bred selectively to produce the highest yields of milk of any cow. Around 22 litres per day is average in the UK.

 

Hides

Most cattle are not kept solely for hides, which are usually a by-product of beef production. Hides are most commonly used for leather, which can be made into a variety of products, including shoes. In 2012 India was the world's largest producer of cattle hides.

 

Oxen

Main article: Ox

 

Oxen (singular ox) are cattle trained as draft animals. Often they are adult, castrated males of larger breeds, although females and bulls are also used in some areas. Usually, an ox is over four years old due to the need for training and to allow it to grow to full size. Oxen are used for plowing, transport, hauling cargo, grain-grinding by trampling or by powering machines, irrigation by powering pumps, and wagon drawing. Oxen were commonly used to skid logs in forests, and sometimes still are, in low-impact, select-cut logging. Oxen are most often used in teams of two, paired, for light work such as carting, with additional pairs added when more power is required, sometimes up to a total of 20 or more. Oxen can be trained to respond to a teamster's signals. These signals are given by verbal commands or by noise (whip cracks). Verbal commands vary according to dialect and local tradition. Oxen can pull harder and longer than horses. Though not as fast as horses, they are less prone to injury because they are more sure-footed.

 

Many oxen are used worldwide, especially in developing countries. About 11.3 million draft oxen are used in sub-Saharan Africa. In India, the number of draft cattle in 1998 was estimated at 65.7 million head. About half the world's crop production is thought to depend on land preparation (such as plowing) made possible by animal traction.

 

Climate change and economics of cattle rearing

See also: Economic impacts of climate change

Climate change increases heat stress, and even mild heat stress can reduce the yield of cow milk. Some researchers suggest that the already recorded stagnation of dairy production in both China and West Africa can attributed to persistent increases in heat stress.: 747  In China, daily milk production per cow is already lower than the average by between 0.7 and 4 kg in July (the hottest month of the year), and by 2070, it may decline by up to 50% (or 7.2 kg) due to climate change. In male cattle, severe heat can affect both spermatogenesis and the stored spermatozoa, and it may take up to eight weeks for sperm to become viable again. In females, heat stress negatively affects conception rates as it impairs corpus luteum and thus ovarian function and oocyte quality. Even after conception, a pregnancy is less likely to be carried to term due to reduced endometrial function and uterine blood flow, leading to increased embryonic mortality and early fetal loss. Calves born to heat-stressed cows typically have a below-average weight, and their weight and height remains below average even by the time they reach their first year, due to permanent changes in their metabolism. Heat stress can also be outright lethal, which is already seen during some heatwaves: in July 1995, over 4000 cattle perished in the mid-central United States heatwave, and in 1999, over 5000 cattle died during a heatwave in northeastern Nebraska.

 

By 2017, it was already reported that farmers in Nepal kept fewer cattle due to the losses imposed by a longer hot season.: 747  As of 2022, it has been suggested that every additional millimeter of annual precipitation increases beef production by 2.1% in the tropical countries and reduces it by 1.9% in temperate ones, yet the effects of warming are much larger. Under SSP3-7.0, a scenario of significant warming and very low adaptation, every additional 1 °C (1.8 °F) would decrease global beef production by 9.7%, mainly because of its impact on tropical and poor countries. In the countries which can afford adaptation measures, production would fall by around 4%, but by 27% in those which can't. Only a few exceptions have been identified to date: for instance, east and south of Argentina may become more suitable to cattle ranching due to climate-driven shifts in rainfall, but a shift to Zebu breeds would likely be needed to minimize the impact of warming. Other studies suggest that Brahman cattle and its cross-breeds are more resistant to heat stress than the regular bos taurus breeds, but on a global scale, it is considered unlikely that even more heat-resistant cattle can be bred at a sufficient rate to keep up with the expected warming.

 

Population

The cattle population of Britain rose from 9.8 million in 1878 to 11.7 million in 1908, but beef consumption rose much faster. Britain became the "stud farm of the world" exporting livestock to countries where there were no indigenous cattle. In 1929 80% of the meat trade of the world was products of what were originally English breeds. There were nearly 70 million cattle in the US by the early 1930s.

 

For 2013, the FAO estimated global cattle numbers at 1.47 billion. Regionally, the FAO estimate for 2013 includes: Asia 497 million; South America 350 million; Africa 307 million; Europe 122 million; North America 102 million; Central America 47 million; Oceania 40 million; and Caribbean 9 million.

 

As per FAS/USDA 2021 data, India had the largest cattle population in the world in 2021 followed by Brazil and China

 

India's cattle's population was reported at 305.5 million head in 2021, accounting for roughly 30% of the world's population. India, Brazil and China accounted for roughly 65% of the world's cattle population in 2021.

 

It has been estimated that out of all animal species on Earth, Bos taurus has the largest biomass at roughly 400 million tonnes, followed closely by Euphausia superba (Antarctic krill) at 379 million tonnes, and Homo sapiens (humans) at 373 million tonnes.

 

Cattle population

Environmental impact

See also: Environmental effects of meat production, Milk § Environmental impact, Deforestation of the Amazon rainforest, Beef § Environmental impact, and Greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture § Livestock

 

Meat from cattle has the highest emissions intensity of any agricultural commodity.

Gut flora in cattle include methanogens that produce methane as a byproduct of enteric fermentation, which cattle belch out. The same volume of atmospheric methane has a 72x higher (over 20 years) global warming potential than atmospheric carbon dioxide. Methane belching from cattle can be reduced with genetic selection, immunization against the many methanogens, rumen defaunation (killing the bacteria-killing protozoa), diet modification (e.g. seaweed fortification), decreased antibiotic use, and grazing management, among others.

 

A 2013 report from the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) based on 2005 data states that the livestock sector is responsible for 14.5% of greenhouse gas emissions, 65% of which is due to cattle. The IPCC estimates that cattle and other livestock emit about 80 to 93 Megatonnes of methane per year, accounting for an estimated 37% of anthropogenic methane emissions, and additional methane is produced by anaerobic fermentation of manure in manure lagoons and other manure storage structures. Another estimate is 12% of global GHG. While cattle fed forage actually produce more methane than grain-fed cattle, the increase may be offset by the increased carbon recapture of pastures, which recapture three times the CO2 of cropland used for grain.

 

Mean greenhouse gas emissions for different food types.

Food TypesGreenhouse Gas Emissions (g CO2-Ceq per gram protein)

Ruminant Meat

62

Recirculating Aquaculture

30

Trawling Fishery

26

Non-recirculating Aquaculture

12

Pork

10

Poultry

10

Dairy

9.1

Non-trawling Fishery

8.6

Eggs

6.8

Starchy Roots

1.7

Wheat

1.2

Maize

1.2

Legumes

0.25

Mean land use of different foods

Food TypesLand Use (m2·year per 100 g protein)

Lamb and Mutton

185

Beef

164

Cheese

41

Pork

11

Poultry

7.1

Eggs

5.7

Farmed Fish

3.7

Peanuts

3.5

Peas

3.4

Tofu

2.2

 

One of the cited changes suggested to reduce greenhouse gas emissions is intensification of the livestock industry, since intensification leads to less land for a given level of production. This assertion is supported by studies of the US beef production system, suggesting practices prevailing in 2007 involved 8.6% less fossil fuel use, 16.3% less greenhouse gas emissions, 12.1% less water use, and 33.0% less land use, per unit mass of beef produced, than those used in 1977. The analysis took into account not only practices in feedlots, but also feed production (with less feed needed in more intensive production systems), forage-based cow-calf operations and back-grounding before cattle enter a feedlot (with more beef produced per head of cattle from those sources, in more intensive systems), and beef from animals derived from the dairy industry. A more controversial suggestion, advocated by George Monbiot in the documentary "Apocalypse Cow", is to stop farming cattle completely, however farmers often have political power so might be able to resist such a big change.

 

Estimated virtual water requirements for various foods (m³ water/ton

Hoekstra & Hung

(2003)

 

Chapagain & Hoekstra (2003)Zimmer & Renault

(2003)

 

Oki et al. (2003)Average

Beef15,97713,50020,70016,730

Pork5,9064,6005,9005,470

Cheese5,2885,290

Poultry2,8284,1004,5003,810

Eggs4,6572,7003,2003,520

Rice2,6561,4003,6002,550

Soybeans2,3002,7502,5002,520

Wheat1,1501,1602,0001,440

Maize4507101,9001,020

Milk865790560740

Potatoes160105130

 

Significant numbers of dairy, as well as beef cattle, are confined in concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs), defined as "new and existing operations which stable or confine and feed or maintain for a total of 45 days or more in any 12-month period more than the number of animals specified" where "[c]rops, vegetation, forage growth, or post-harvest residues are not sustained in the normal growing season over any portion of the lot or facility." They may be designated as small, medium and large. Such designation of cattle CAFOs is according to cattle type (mature dairy cows, veal calves or other) and cattle numbers, but medium CAFOs are so designated only if they meet certain discharge criteria, and small CAFOs are designated only on a case-by-case basis.

 

Mean eutrophying emissions (water pollution) of different foods per 100 g of protein

Food TypesEutrophying Emissions (g PO43-eq per 100 g protein)

Beef

365.3

Farmed Fish

235.1

Farmed Crustaceans

227.2

Cheese

98.4

Lamb and Mutton

97.1

Pork

76.4

Poultry

48.7

Eggs

21.8

Peanuts

14.1

Peas

7.5

Tofu

6.2

Mean acidifying emissions (air pollution) of different foods per 100 g of protein

Food TypesAcidifying Emissions (g SO2eq per 100 g protein)

Beef

343.6

Cheese

165.5

Pork

142.7

Lamb and Mutton

139.0

Farmed Crustaceans

133.1

Poultry

102.4

Farmed Fish

65.9

Eggs

53.7

Peanuts

22.6

Peas

8.5

Tofu

6.7

A CAFO that discharges pollutants is required to obtain a permit, which requires a plan to manage nutrient runoff, manure, chemicals, contaminants, and other wastewater pursuant to the US Clean Water Act. The regulations involving CAFO permitting have been extensively litigated.

 

Commonly, CAFO wastewater and manure nutrients are applied to land at agronomic rates for use by forages or crops, and it is often assumed that various constituents of wastewater and manure, e.g. organic contaminants and pathogens, will be retained, inactivated or degraded on the land with application at such rates; however, additional evidence is needed to test reliability of such assumptions . Concerns raised by opponents of CAFOs have included risks of contaminated water due to feedlot runoff, soil erosion, human and animal exposure to toxic chemicals, development of antibiotic resistant bacteria and an increase in E. coli contamination. While research suggests some of these impacts can be mitigated by developing wastewater treatment systems and planting cover crops in larger setback zones, the Union of Concerned Scientists released a report in 2008 concluding that CAFOs are generally unsustainable and externalize costs.

 

Another concern is manure, which if not well-managed, can lead to adverse environmental consequences. However, manure also is a valuable source of nutrients and organic matter when used as a fertilizer. Manure was used as a fertilizer on about 6,400,000 hectares (15.8 million acres) of US cropland in 2006, with manure from cattle accounting for nearly 70% of manure applications to soybeans and about 80% or more of manure applications to corn, wheat, barley, oats and sorghum. Substitution of manure for synthetic fertilizers in crop production can be environmentally significant, as between 43 and 88 megajoules of fossil fuel energy would be used per kg of nitrogen in manufacture of synthetic nitrogenous fertilizers.

 

Grazing by cattle at low intensities can create a favourable environment for native herbs and forbs by mimicking the native grazers who they displaced; in many world regions, though, cattle are reducing biodiversity due to overgrazing. A survey of refuge managers on 123 National Wildlife Refuges in the US tallied 86 species of wildlife considered positively affected and 82 considered negatively affected by refuge cattle grazing or haying. Proper management of pastures, notably managed intensive rotational grazing and grazing at low intensities can lead to less use of fossil fuel energy, increased recapture of carbon dioxide, fewer ammonia emissions into the atmosphere, reduced soil erosion, better air quality, and less water pollution.

 

Health

The veterinary discipline dealing with cattle and cattle diseases (bovine veterinary) is called buiatrics. Veterinarians and professionals working on cattle health issues are pooled in the World Association for Buiatrics, founded in 1960. National associations and affiliates also exist.

 

Digital dermatitis is caused by the bacteria from the genus Treponema. It differs from foot rot and can appear under unsanitary conditions such as poor hygiene or inadequate hoof trimming, among other causes. It primarily affects dairy cattle and has been known to lower the quantity of milk produced, however the milk quality remains unaffected. Cattle are also susceptible to ringworm caused by the fungus, Trichophyton verrucosum, a contagious skin disease which may be transferred to humans exposed to infected cows.

 

Public health

Cattle diseases were in the center of attention in the 1980s and 1990s when the Bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), also known as mad cow disease, was of concern. Cattle might catch and develop various other diseases, like blackleg, bluetongue, foot rot too.

 

In most states, as cattle health is not only a veterinarian issue, but also a public health issue, public health and food safety standards and farming regulations directly affect the daily work of farmers who keep cattle. However, said rules change frequently and are often debated. For instance, in the UK, it was proposed in 2011 that milk from tuberculosis-infected cattle should be allowed to enter the food chain. Internal food safety regulations might affect a country's trade policy as well. For example, the United States has just reviewed its beef import rules according to the "mad cow standards"; while Mexico forbids the entry of cattle who are older than 30 months.

 

Medicinal uses

Cow urine is commonly used in India for internal medical purposes. It is distilled and then consumed by patients seeking treatment for a wide variety of illnesses. At present, no conclusive medical evidence shows this has any effect. However, an Indian medicine containing cow urine has already obtained U.S. patents.

 

Effect of high stocking density

Stocking density refers to the number of animals within a specified area. When stocking density reaches high levels, the behavioural needs of the animals may not be met. This can negatively influence health, welfare and production performance.

 

The effect of overstocking in cows can have a negative effect on milk production and reproduction rates which are two very important traits for dairy farmers. Overcrowding of cows in barns has been found to reduced feeding, resting and rumination. Although they consume the same amount of dry matter within the span of a day, they consume the food at a much more rapid rate, and this behaviour in cows can lead to further complications. The feeding behaviour of cows during their post-milking period is very important as it has been proven that the longer animals can eat after milking, the longer they will be standing up and therefore causing less contamination to the teat ends. This is necessary to reduce the risk of mastitis as infection has been shown to increase the chances of embryonic loss. Sufficient rest is important for dairy cows because it is during this period that their resting blood flow increases up to 50%, this is directly proportionate to milk production. Each additional hour of rest can be seen to translate to 2 to 3.5 more pounds of milk per cow daily. Stocking densities of anything over 120% have been shown to decrease the amount of time cows spend lying down.

 

Cortisol is an important stress hormone; its plasma concentrations increase greatly when subjected to high levels of stress. Increased concentration levels of cortisol have been associated with significant increases in gonadotrophin levels and lowered progestin levels. Reduction of stress is important in the reproductive state of cows as an increase in gonadotrophin and lowered progesterone levels may impinge on the ovulatory and lutenization process and to reduce the chances of successful implantation. A high cortisol level will also stimulate the degradation of fats and proteins which may make it difficult for the animal to sustain

Approximate scale drawings of future plans for the house...done by Richard and myself.

 

Best viewed large for details.

Approximately 40 U.S. Army National Guard Soldiers with the 751st Combat Sustainment Support Battalion, South Carolina National Guard, returned home June 8, 2020 from a nearly yearlong deployment to the Middle East in support of Operation Spartan Shield providing contracting work, range operations, dining facility operations, billets management, and more. (courtesy photo)

Approximately 23 Dianas visited the rally. Only 110 Dianas are for the road registrated.

Approximately 80 people including those running for Osage Nation Congressional office in the June election attended the United Osages of Southern California spring gathering held on April 23 in Carlsbad. BENNY POLACCA/ Osage News

Under a beautiful blue sky, approximately 200 Vicenza Military Community members including Soldiers, civilians and family members kicked off the annual Turkey Trot 5K run/walk on the Caserma Ederle Track and Field Nov. 17.

After the run, winners in each category of Men, Women and Children received prizes, and additional turkeys were given out during a raffle.

 

Photo by Laura Kreider, USAG Italy/PAO

  

Learn more about us on www.usag.italy.army.mil and www.facebook.com/VMCItaly

 

APPROXIMATE RELEASE DATE: 2005-2010

 

***Elizabeth is wearing her "meet" shoes with this outfit.

 

PERSONAL FUN FACT: I'll admit, this was my least favorite outfit of Elizabeth's for a long time. Maybe I wasn't as interested in it because it is the color pink. I wasn't planning on buying it right away for my Bitsy doll, but I found this for crazy good deal, so I just couldn't resist it! This outfit most certainly floored me when it arrived in the mail. The seller had listed it as being somewhat dirty (but for the really cheap price, I didn't care). But on the contrary, this outfit didn't have so much as a speck of dirt on it, and it smelled amazing!!! It is truly breathtaking on my Elizabeth doll. The light pink color really compliments her light blonde hair and stunning blue eyes. It's certainly not my least favorite outfit anymore...I still can't believe I was lucky enough to get this in such great condition, and for so cheap! I do wonder if colonial women actually wore pink riding outfits, or if this was just Mattel's way of making it more appealing to young children. After all, in the original books, Elizabeth was brunette not a blonde.

BOX DATE: None

APPROXIMATE RELEASE DATE: 2013

MANUFACTURER: M.G.A.

DOLLS IN LINE: Angelica; Carolina; Siernna

BODY TYPE: 2012; molded shimmer panties; articulated elbows, wrists, waist, & knees

HEAD MOLD: 2012; pierced ears

 

PERSONAL FUN FACT: As I really got interested in collecting Bratzillaz dolls, I was torn about this line of Witchy Princesses. The dolls were sort of expensive, and I didn't find them all that attractive. However, they each were single appearance characters, and I knew if I passed them up while they were in stores, I might not find them later easily. Siernna was the deciding factor in this decision. It is because of her that I ended up hoarding the other two ladies from her line. It was right after Christmas 2013. Colleen and I used to love hitting up several stores a few days after the holiday, on a quest for sales. At Target, I found Siernna Calmer (and some Action Heroez Bratz) in the clearance section. Since she was so much cheaper and my curiosity was piqued, I thought this would be the opportune time to "sample" the line. Ironically, she had been my least favorite before owning any of the dolls. I wasn't a huge fan of her banana bangs, and she didn't seem to stand out as much as say Angelica or Carolina. But in the car, I first really soaked in this doll....and boy was I impressed. To this day, I will stand by the fact that her best feature is her stunning grey eyes! They are so lightly colored, that they almost appear white in certain lighting. Like the other two dolls, she has a special eyebrow shape and tattoos around her eyes. But she has symmetrical ones around both eyes, not just one. I do feel that her very bouncy bangs detract from this doll's one of a kind eyes, but it's an adorable hairstyle nonetheless. I was so pleasantly taken aback by this doll, that I knew I had to get my hands on the others from her collection...which is exactly what happened not long after. Although I feel fond of Angelica because she's so ridiculously goofy looking, and Carolina is the most aesthetically pleasing overall, I feel the most sentimental attached to Siernna. She reminded me that every Bratzillaz doll is a work of art, even those from the collections I initially dismissed.