page_title: Cattle
section_title: Reproduction
hierarchical_section_title: Cattle / Characteristics / Anatomy / Reproduction
caption_attribution_description: English: Ox testis. Bos taurus Technique of formalin fixation on display at the Museum of Veterinary Anatomy, FMVZ USP. This file was published as the result of a partnership between the Museum of Veterinary Anatomy FMVZ USP, the RIDC NeuroMat and the Wikimedia Community User Group Brasil. This GLAM project is reported.
context_page_description: Cattle, or cows and bulls, are the most common type of large domesticated ungulates. They are a prominent modern member of the subfamily Bovinae, are the most widespread species of the genus Bos, and are most commonly classified collectively as Bos taurus.
  Cattle are commonly raised as livestock for meat, for milk, and for hides, which are used to make leather. They are used as riding animals and draft animals. 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 have significant religious meaning. Cattle, mostly small breeds such as the Miniature Zebu, are also kept as pets.
  Around 10,500 years ago, cattle were domesticated from as few as 80 progenitors in central Anatolia, the Levant and Western Iran. According to an estimate from 2011, there are 1.4 billion cattle in the world. In 2009, cattle became one of the first livestock animals to have a fully mapped genome.
context_section_description: 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 simply 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.
  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.
  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. Induced ovulation can be manipulated to produce farming benefits. For example, to synchronise ovulation of the cattle to benefit dairy farming.
caption: Ox testes
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