Wednesday, May 14, 2008

World's Tallest Cow Not Texan

I was shocked, shocked I tell you, to learn this afternoon that the World's Tallest Cow is not a Texan. It's not even an American. It's a Brit. A UK cow named Chili.

Chili stands 6 feet 6 inches tall in his bare feet. That is taller than me in my bare feet.

Currently Chili's tall status is not official. The Guinness people are investigating.

Chili weighs over a ton. That is 5,510 8 oz. steaks or 11,020 McDonald's Quarter Pounders. He is a black and white Friesian steer. I'm not all that farm familiar, but I'm fairly certain that a steer has had his gender neutralized, so, I'm thinking that would make Chili no longer a he, I guess 'it' would be more appropriate.

The UK is smaller than Texas. It almost seems some sort of state disgrace for Texas not to have the world's tallest cow.

Currently the largest cow on record is American. A Holstein-Durham named Mount Katahdin. That cow stood 6 feet 2 inches with a girth of 13 feet. I'm not sure what a girth is. Mount Katahdin died in 1923. Seems odd that in all those years, til now, no cow has grown taller than Mount Katahdin.

Surely, somewhere in Texas there must be a cow taller than 6 feet 6 inches. Let the search begin.

UPDATE: A Texan has now claimed to have discovered the Tallest Cow in the World.

6 comments:

Gar said...

You Northerners know nothing about cattle. I don't know if that's a bad thing.
Don't you hate it when people correct you about your posts?
A bull is an intact male. An adult female is called a cow. A castrated male is called a steer.
Therefore, your title, "World's Tallest Cow Not Texan" has nothing to do with your story.

Durango said...

All over the internet that beast is being called the tallest cow. It confused me when I read the cow was a steer because I thought a steer was how we got Rocky Mountain Oysters. Maybe cow is the name of the species, with the male cow being a bull and the female cow being a bull and a bull with its testicles no longer intact being a steer. I'm not a huge fan of beef.

Anonymous said...

The female is actually a heifer and cow is what they ALL are. Actually the biggest cow is Italian his name is Fiorino and he is 2 inches taller than Chilli.

Anonymous said...

Heifer is a female bovine who has not had a calf. Cow is a female bovine who has had a calf. Steer is a castrated male. Bull is an intact male. All may loosely be refered to as "cows." We seem to have interchanged that with the species name- bovine.

Anonymous said...

Cattle

Anonymous said...

Less than a year old is a calf. Female who was had a calf is a cow. Female who hasn't had a calf is a heifer. A male who has been castrated is a steer. A male who has not been castrated is a bull.

The plural is "cattle" unless the group is limited to one type. To talk about just one, you have to use calf, cow, heifer, bull, or steer.