Anatomy of cattle!

Farmer Kitty

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The inside view:
5_whole_anatomy_pic.jpg


Outside view of a dairy animal:
5_dairyanatomy-outside1.jpg

Outside view of a beef animal:
5_beefcowanatomy1.jpg

Skeletal view of a beef animal:
5_beefskel.gif

View of a cow's digestive track:
5_cowstomachanatomy.jpg

Cows stomachs
1. The Rumen - this is the largest part and holds upto 50 gallons of partially digested food. This is where the 'cud' comes from. Good bacteria in the Rumen helps soften and digest the cow's food and provides protein for the cow.
2. The Recticulum - this part of the stomach is called the 'hardware' stomach. This is because if the cow eats something it shouldn't have like a peice of fencing, it lodges here in the Recticulum and cause no damage to the cow. Also, the grass that has been eaten is also softened further and and formed into small wads of cud. Each cud returns to the cow's mouth and is chewed 40-60 times and then swallowed properly.
3. The Omasum - this part of the stomach is a 'filter'. It filters through all the food the cow eats. The cud is also pressed and broken down further.
4. The Abomasum - this part of the stomach is like a human's stomach and is connected to the intestines. Here, the food is finally digested by the cow's stomach juices and essential nutrients that the cow needs are passed through the bloodstream. The rest is passed through to the intestines and produces a 'cow pat'.

Female reproductive tract:
5_reproductive_tract1.jpg
 

wynedot55

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i see you found the pics an images you was looking for.theres lots of helpful info there for newbies.
 

Farmer Kitty

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wynedot55 said:
i see you found the pics an images you was looking for.theres lots of helpful info there for newbies.
Yes, I found a bunch of pics and images but, if anyone knows/has more they think would be helpful to others I'm still looking for more.
 

WildRoseBeef

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Body Condition Scoring of Cattle (applies to both beef and dairy)

BCS1.png

BCS2.png

BCS3.png

BCS4.png

BCS5.png


To get American values, AmBCS=CndBCS*2 - 1

BCS is best used in relation to reproductive ability (breed-back and calving) and feed efficiency, since it is a subjective measure of the amount of fat that an animal is carrying. It's now being encouraged to be used in beef cows in terms of feeding costs as well as reproductive efficiencies.
 

Farmer Kitty

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:welcome
Thank you for the great info! I hadn't thought to look for body conditioning info.
 

WildRoseBeef

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Your welcome...and thanks for the welcome.

I have some more info on the different breeds I could scan off of from one of the beef books I have...got some good info here, but I know there's still something missing....can't think of it though..
 

WildRoseBeef

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More things...

Reproductive anatomy of the bull:
236_scan0006.jpg


Ovaries of the cow
236_scan0007.jpg


Heat cycle graph
236_scan0007a.jpg


I'm still working on getting the cattle breed charts (which contain both beef and dairy breeds!) together, so I'll post them maybe tomorrow.
 
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