https://www.afp.com/en/news/22...bull-run-doc-17a83y1
The first picture of this article is captioned as someone being gored by a heifer bull. Thank you AFP for enlightening me. Around the world it seems 'journalists have a problem getting their facts straight.

Must be a bull that self-identifies as a heifer.

That would explain the rainbow ear tag.

Genderfluid bovine

Maybe autocorrect changed Hereford?

RogueJSK, I never thought of that, heh heh.

A local elementary school, not the one my kids attended, started some Steven Covey program in a box recently. As part of the program, they added a mascot that reinforces one of the main themes of the program. Greta the gratitude stallion Yes this is Austin so I am sure someone will be along in this thread to insist they knew full well what they were doing and LGBXYZ agenda...blah..blah..blah. I personally think whoever came up with the name is just an idiot. I either case, every time I drive by the school and see that name on the marquee I just shake my head.

A heifer is a female bovine that has never been bred. By definition, then, she is a cow, not a bull, which has never had a calf.

The cited article is obviously an example of misused terminology on the part of an ignorant author who is writing way outside his/her field of expertise.

But the term "heifer bull" is in common use among cattlemen. It refers to a bull that has low birth weight EPDs (EPD = expected progeny differences, and is a genetic scoring tool used to predict what characteristics a bull's offspring will have).

Low birthweight EPDs mean that the bull will produce a relatively small calf, say an 80-pound calf, as opposed to a 100-pound calf. This is desirable when you're breeding heifers, as a large calf is VERY hard on a heifer. A heifer carrying a calf from a bull that has high birthweight EPDs will not be able to deliver without assistance -- you'll have to pull the calf, the chances of losing the calf and/or the mother go way up, following delivery the mother will be exhausted/in pain/injured and will be unable to immediately nurse, and other problems will manifest, together with their costs.

So you make sure that the bull that you habitually put in with the heifers, your "heifer bull", is one that will produce small calves.

The difference between a heifer bull and a herd bull is how they are used. A heifer bull is bred to heifers and a herd bull is mated with mature cows. Heifers are female cattle that are one year of age or older and have not had a calf. Most producers breed heifers to calve at two years of age.

I see a few others had to google that term too!

It's simply bovine gender fluidity and identity.

Well, you never get too old to learn something new. RogueJSK's explaination is funnier though....

No ,no,no, that's Carter Heifer's bull, his name is name is Daisey.

quote:

Originally posted by trapper189:
Maybe autocorrect changed Hereford?

I doubt the author would know about Hereford breed. Besides, that doesn't look remotely like a Hereford.

I live in a rural community.

Our church had a new young pastor.

One Sunday at service he was asking for mission offerings to go towards animals for people in third world countries. He mentioned that money would be going to goats and HI-Furs. You could see the congregation mouthing HI-Fur with questions in their eyes, then realizing what he was talking about.