Producing beef and different breeds of cows
If someone told you to picture a cow, what would it look like?
A black-and-white Holstein dairy cow?
Or an all-black Angus beef cow?
Dairy and beef cows look a little different, but they’re the same species.
What if I told you that there was another species of beef cow?
Bos indicus cows are also known as Zebu. They look physically different from our Bos taurus cows, which includes both ‘normal’ dairy and beef cows.
Zebu have long, drooping ears and a great big hump on their neck -- they resemble a very large basset hound with their droopy skin and ears.
Zebu are also different physiologically. They mature later than taurine cows, have a higher level of circulating hormones (estradiol, progesterone, insulin and IGF-I), among other differences detailed in the study done by Brazillian researchers for a supplement to Society of Reproduction and Fertility. The males are said to produce more sperm than taurine cows as well.
Another difference? Zebu are less efficient beef producers because it takes longer for them to reach their full mature weight- and they tend to weigh less than a taurine cow once they get there.
But that may all change
with the research coming from Texas A&M. There have been long strides made toward understanding gonadotropin-releasing hormone in mammals (mice and primates).
That doesn’t mean much to most people.
Gonadotropin-releasing hormone? So what?
Let’s break it down. A hormone is a chemical substance produced by an endocrine gland, which are found in the
brain (pituitary, hypothalamus, and pineal glands), in the neck (thyroid and parathyroid glands), and in the trunk of the body (thymus, pancreas, and adrenals). Hormones are both the
messenger and the message -- the presence of the hormone in the place it was intended to be tells the group of cells to do something or to produce a different hormone in a