Talk:Bull

Proposed additions

Moving these over from the body of the article. bd2412 T 22:08, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

Reproductive anatomy

(Propose adding a section here comparable to Stallion#Anatomy.)

Behavior

Nothing more to add here

(Propose something akin to Stallion#Herd_behavior)

It is unfair to say that one should never trust a bull. In fact, when La Bete terrorized the French in the late 18th century, some of them were saved only by taking refuge with bulls! One boy clung to the tail of a bull when it fought off the attacker.

I think if right to eat beef (and the flesh of every animal but man), but we must understand AGENDAS here. Those veterinarians who give the life-threatening advice "never trust a bull" are really motivated by fear that men will stop killing bulls. It is unfair to look for examples of bulls kiling men-one can do the same for dogs-which veterinarians consider to be "companion animals". There have been examples of dogs killing their owners-does that mean that dogs must not be seen as companions or trusted? One could certainly do the same for humans-humans have killed each other far more often than any animals, wild or domestic.

This would be a minor point except that such remarks encourage the abuse in vogue in feedlots and factory farms.70.190.102.49 (talk) 00:15, 3 October 2017 (UTC)

Moreover, one finds that "never trust a bull" (at least in the English-speaking world) was never said until the late 1800s. It is not a venerable piece of wisdom, quite the contrary.-70.190.102.49 (talk) 00:31, 3 October 2017 (UTC)

The article (at least the current version) says nothing about "never trusting a bull". The closest it comes is to reference an article saying that a farmer's death prompted "comments from experts ranging from 'never trust a bull' to 'always take a dog with you when handling a bull'," but neither of those quotes made it into the article itself. If you actually read the passage you continue to remove, it merely states that bulls are "capable of aggressive behavior and require careful handling". This position is backed up by statistics as well. Saying that some people "were saved only by taking refuge with bulls" is fine, but translating that into "bulls are as trustworthy as dogs" is akin to saying that seatbelts are harmful and should be banned because there have been a few cases of people surviving automobile accidents because they weren't wearing them. Pointing out exceptions doesn't disprove the rule. CThomas³ (talk) 00:54, 3 October 2017 (UTC)

I spent a number of years of my childhood on a cattle ranch. "Never trust a bull" is gospel; they are quite unpredictable and very territorial. I also must point out that bulls are seldom found in feedlots, it is steers that are fattened for meat. This content is sourced and well-documented. Montanabw^(talk) 01:30, 3 October 2017 (UTC)

Well then in your intelligent and informed eyes advice that experience has shown to be life-threatening is to be accepted as "gospel", notwithstanding the potential agendas of those who espouse it.70.190.102.49 (talk) 02:21, 3 October 2017 (UTC)

So cattle are tame enough to be raised for meat, but wild enough to not be "pets"? How suspiciously convenient! I suppose that God in His wisdom purposely made them aggressive when befriended, so that they would only be useful as food.-70.190.102.49 (talk) 02:20, 3 October 2017 (UTC)

If you disagree with the information provided by the sources in the article, offer equally reliable sources with different information. Then we can present both and let the readers weigh them. bd2412 T 03:11, 3 October 2017 (UTC)

I am not following your reasoning as to why So cattle are tame enough to be raised for meat, but wild enough to not be "pets"? can't be true. Check out this article on dangerous farm animals as an example. It points out that every farm animal can be dangerous (though it goes on to say that 50% of fatal and non-fatal farm accidents are caused by bulls). Just because something is raised for food doesn't make it safe; raising mushrooms is a great example. An animal raised by professionals taking proper safety precautions will likely be perfectly harmless, but that same animal around untrained people, especially children, is a recipe for disaster. CThomas³ (talk) 06:16, 3 October 2017 (UTC)

I will be making a longer response later, and will be revising the article to make it, provisionally, more balanced. I did not say "So cattle are tame enough to be raised for meat, but wild enough to not be 'pets'?" "can't be true" in the sense of being a LOGICAL CONTRADICTION, akin to speaking of a two-sided square or a married bachelor. What I said was that it was "suspiciously convenient". What I mean is this: that most of those saying that bulls can't be trusted (or cattle generally) have ALREADY MADE THE DECISION not to see them as "pets", for ECONOMIC REASONS ALONE, i.e. because befriending them would make them harder to slaughter. That leads me to suspect that such a viewpoint is a RATIONALIZATION, not a REASON, for an instrumentalist view ALREADY ARRIVED AT.

By missing this point you end up proving it, for you say "that every farm animal can be dangerous". What is a "farm animal" exactly? And isn't it the case, for that matter" that every dog "can be dangerous"? Just search google and you will find EXAMPLE AFTER EXAMPLE of dogs killing owners. Yet veterinarians will never suggest that that means that dogs should be seen as "farm animals" rather than as "companion animals" (whatever those designations even mean. I would think that you should raise every animal FOR ITS OWN SAKE first, and so treat it as a "companion animal" first, WHATEVER ELSE you might raise it for.)

I might finally note that one writer (who I unfortunately cannot cite to as this article no longer seems to no longer be available), when describing why cattle cannot be trusted, said "Keep in mind that cattle are livestock, not pets". Is that not akin to saying "Thank God for making Cattle dangerous so there wouldn't be any troublesome companionship to interfere with their usefulness as food"?

I know that this writing may have been POV-ridden, but that is my complaint with the article. It encourages hatred (yes, HATRED) towards one of the domestic animals that we are doomed to live with and that is doomed to live with us, like siblings I might say, and thus will cause readers to LOSE THEIR HUMANITY. It will also encourage the abuse of cattle in vogue in the Western world, whether in feedlots and other factory farms, or the killing of bulls (along with horses) in bullfights for that matter.-70.190.102.49 (talk) 16:27, 4 October 2017 (UTC)

Even the page category reflects such POV by establishing a category of "livestock". What do the words "pet" and "livestock" mean anyway? Don't they just waste ink? Why not just say "animal"?-70.190.102.49 (talk) 18:11, 4 October 2017 (UTC)

This line of reasoning is a non sequitur. Dogs can also be very dangerous - there is an entire section in the "Dog" article about this - without implying that they can't be pets. As for the "livestock" category, it is trivially easy to find literally tens of thousands of reliable sources describing bulls as livestock. bd2412 T 18:19, 4 October 2017 (UTC)

You just proved my point-dangerous dogs do not prove that dogs are not human companions. So how come dangerous bulls (which undoubtedly exist) prove that bulls are not?

The term "livestock" is one that describes how humans value animals, and tells us nothing about the animal (including its view of any human). So why does Wikipedia have it? Wouldn't just saying "animal" be NPOV?-70.190.102.49 (talk) 18:23, 4 October 2017 (UTC)

Nowhere in the dog article do we find any SPECIFIC mention of dogs killing humans as we do with the bull article. This seems inappropriate, to say the least-at least in terms of the difference. If I have missed any let me know.-70.190.102.49 (talk) 18:25, 4 October 2017 (UTC)

Wikipedia is written for humans. You are free to create a website elsewhere on the internet containing encyclopedia articles directed to the animal's point of view. bd2412 T 18:27, 4 October 2017 (UTC)

We have an entire separate article at Dog bite including data on fatalities from dog attacks. bd2412 T 18:28, 4 October 2017 (UTC)

Those sources are only "reliable" in so far as they describe how humans view animals ECONOMICALLY. Why not call a PETA website a "reliable" source for terms?

Where is the "non sequitur" in my reasoning? Please let me know. I don't understand what you mean.-70.190.102.49 (talk) 18:27, 4 October 2017 (UTC)

The non-sequitur is that discussing the danger posed by animals is unrelated to the relationship with those animals. There are dangerous pets and harmless pets. There are dangerous livestock animals and harmless livestock animals. There are dangerous and harmless animals which fall into neither category. bd2412 T 18:30, 4 October 2017 (UTC)

Wikipedia is indeed written for humans-there are plenty of humans-including beef eaters-who see bulls as "pets" (including Charo) without any catastrophes occuring. Why shouldn't their views prevail?

What I'm saying is that the term "livestock" is itself a POV term (as is "pet").-70.190.102.49 (talk) 18:30, 4 October 2017 (UTC)

I see no plausible expectation that there will be a consensus in this article to describe bulls as anything but livestock. bd2412 T 18:32, 4 October 2017 (UTC)

I have been writing articles on bulls and some other animals for a year now. The industries that provide the largest ownership and use of these animals are not going to change their terminology because of a Wikipedia article. They are livestock. Also see Category:Livestock. All published dictionaries and encyclopedias, both hardcopy and online, refer to bulls and all farm animals as livestock. Wikipedia is not here to redefine terms but to document the existing ones. dawnleelynn^(talk) 19:53, 4 October 2017 (UTC)

P.S. You're just pushing semantics around, and it's really simple. Livestock is as was said earlier, a positive term: farm animals regarded as an asset. dawnleelynn^(talk) 20:01, 4 October 2017 (UTC)

Greetings, 70.190.102.49, and thank you for your post, though I must respectfully disagree with your line of reasoning. I do agree with you that all animals pose a non-zero risk to humans; however, the conclusion that you appear to draw from this is that all animals pose comparable risk to humans. There are stories of dogs injuring humans and there are stories of bulls injuring humans, so therefore they must pose the same threat? This is not at all supported by fact. No one is claiming dogs are harmless: as BD2412 points out, we have an entire article on dog bites. But there is absolutely a statistical difference in the risk dogs and bulls pose to humans. On average, 15 to 20 people die from dog bites in the United States each year (CDC estimate), while only about 10 die each year from bull attacks. However, there are 65 million dogs in the United States, most of whom are in near-constant contact with untrained and often unfamiliar people, including children. By contrast, there are only around 5 million bulls in the United States, most of whom are generally isolated and only sporadically in contact with highly trained humans who are well known to the bull. Which of those appears to be the higher risk to humans? See the following study as an example. Its conclusions:

1. the risk of injury associated with hours of exposure to bulls is higher than that of working around cows;
2. the risk of a bull-related fatality, based upon the hours of exposure, appears to be higher than other known hazards, such as tractor operation;
3. victims generally appeared to have had considerable experience with handling bulls;
4. bulls raised from calves on-site appeared more aggressive; and
5. most of the incidents involved the victim being inside the bull holding area.

These are not the characteristics of an animal suitable as a pet. Could you argue that we as a society have not really tried to domesticate bulls for pets? Sure, you could. But unless you can find a study (and ideally more than one) where that has been analyzed, it isn't Wikipedia's job to speculate on whether or not that is "correct" or even possible. CThomas³ (talk) 02:40, 5 October 2017 (UTC)

I will make two comments-one for each users-before I shut up on this issue for some time ( I promise!). BD2412: I do not mean to be impertinent, but I have to ask-is "consensus" really the best you can argue for? Wikipedia is supposed to be NPOV, not majority POV.

User:Cthomas3: Do you mean to deny that ALL bulls can be pets (and deserve to be regarded as such)? Or merely that dogs are MORE LIKELY to be so?

Did you see what I wrote beneath about the matadora? Was the bull a "pet" or a "livestock" in that case? What is even meant by these terms?

Of course in a sense we as a society (pace some anthropologists) can already be said to treat somebulls as"pets"-rodeo bulls are often spared the slaughterhouse for a good performance, so it could even be said they are treated as sacred cows!

These are all POV questions, but as I have written above, my concern with the article is a POV one. I just want clarification as to what you are trying to say.

-70.190.102.49 (talk) 03:02, 5 October 2017 (UTC)

What makes Wikipedia NPOV is the fact that we merely reflect what is written in reliable sources. Those sources overwhelmingly categorize bulls as livestock, not as pets, and indicate the danger of bulls in that role. bd2412 T 03:08, 5 October 2017 (UTC)

I will make another comment here-the untrustworthiness of bulls is treated in the article as a given, i.e. regarding moving a bull with a staff.

Here is a video of Charo playing with her bull Manolo.

Does it look like she is "taking no chances"? Why is she still alive?

If she were gored to death, I suppose that all veterinarians who say a bull cannot be trusted (coincidentally generally paid supporters of factory farming) will welcome a vindication of the lack of intrinsic value of bulls, and how they are good only for food.

-70.190.102.49 (talk) 02:02, 5 October 2017 (UTC)

I also want to make two points here regarding the whole pet/livestock distinction-it is useless (to say the least) in describing either the animal or the owner.

Here is what I mean when I say it does not do justice to the "animal's point of view". This book quotes a matadora (a young Frenchwoman) as saying that it made her sad to kill one bull, because he gave her a "look of affection" and "warmth" that almost made her cry.

Was he a "pet" or a "livestock"? Of course, if you call him the latter, you tell us nothing about him, only how humans might see him. (Note: Of course, the bulls and horses killed in bullfights are not considered "livestock" in the usual sense of the word. They are seen as dying "glorious deaths" in the ring, and any living creature, of course, achieves glory only for itself.)

It is no less useless in describing how humans relate to animals. This is a point I made on Talk: Pet. It is often said people in the modern West keep animals as pets while those in the past did not, along with people in "developing" countries, and this shows that they have a less instrumentalist and more affectionate view of animals.

Depending on how one defines "pet" (is an animal that is eaten a "pet"? Does a "pet" have to have a name? Does it have to live inside the house?) this claim may be true as far as it goes. But if so, it is perhaps the best example of a claim that conceals much more than it reveals.

Medievals may have made dogs work and kept them outside the house, but they did not torture dogs and cats in laboratories for their whole lives the way modern "pet-keeping" Westerners do.

Nor was there any factory farming of any kind, in spite of there being no laws against it.

So ask yourself whether modern "pet-keeping" Westerners engage in honest assessment or projection when they speak of the "utilitarian" views other societies supposedly take of animals-70.190.102.49 (talk) 02:17, 5 October 2017 (UTC)

Greetings, 70.190.102.49. I absolutely do not mean that all bulls cannot be pets, and I do not believe that I implied it. Clearly the overwhelming majority of the 5 million bulls in the United States are cared for on a daily basis without incident, and I have to believe that there are many who would have the proper temperament to be safe enough to be treated as pets (though keep in mind that the sheer size of the animal makes them dangerous to us comparatively-small humans even if they don't intend to be—humans injure cats frequently when they trip over them as they get underfoot). My only point was that the risk for humans is comparatively much higher than dogs, though nonzero in both cases. I don't believe you would find a credible source claiming that climbing Mount Everest is anything but an extremely dangerous undertaking, but obviously many people succeed every year. Claiming that it is extremely dangerous is not the same as claiming it is not possible to climb. CThomas³ (talk) 03:25, 5 October 2017 (UTC)

Idle thought

This may be Wiki-PTSD from an old edit war, but I recall some sort of fuss being raised over the fact that bulls may also be elk, moose, elephants, etc...unlike stallions, which are pretty much just horses and maybe zebras. I think this may have been why this article name got moved into a disambig in the first place. Anyway, heads up that this could come back around.—Preceding unsigned comment added by Montanabw (talk • contribs) 03:03, 3 August 2010

Given the amount of work this will save disambiguators, I anticipate support far outstripping any opposition to this move. bd2412 T 02:09, 3 August 2010 (UTC)

Similar discussion occurred at Calf, and the result was to keep the article to bovine calves. If you try to cover everything called "bull" (but omit male animals called something else: stallion, boar, cock etc), you are describing the word, not the thing, and you have created a dictionary definition. The point is covered well instead in List of animal names. Richard New Forest (talk) 08:56, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

Material in Nose ring (animal)

Just noticed that there is quite a bit about bull handling in Nose ring (animal), which really needs to be merged here (and mostly removed from there). I haven't time just now; is there anyone else who'd like to do it...? Richard New Forest (talk) 08:56, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

File:Lascaux-aurochs.jpg Nominated for Deletion

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Incomplete castration

I removed the recently-added claim that an incompletely castrated bull (as when one testicle is left) is called a "bull's horn," since it does not seem likely and since i could not find a ref to verify it. Apparently some folks using the rubber band method can't count to two, or they might have a bull calf with an undescended testicle which they miss. Edison (talk) 04:25, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

Removing my recent talk contribution

I take strong exception to you removing my talk contibution. I did not change the article, my contribution was intended to initiate a 'Talk Page' discussion on the suitability of an illustrative image currently in this article. Please explain, you may be mistaken about your authority to edit the contribution of others on the talk pages.--Damorbel (talk) 08:51, 18 February 2014 (UTC)

Your comment appeared to fall under WP:NOT#CHAT as you claimed the animal did not look like a bull, when it is blatently clear it's a bull, it appeared to be random "kiddie chatter," which is why I removed it. If you have a sincere question, perhaps restate it clearly and in a more mature manner. Montanabw^(talk) 19:06, 18 February 2014 (UTC)

This link is to the illustration in question. It clearly is the reproductive system of a cow. There are no testicles in the illustration but ovaries, fallopian tube, a uterus and a vagina all of which correspond to the human femalehuman female, there is no part of a bull in that illustration. --Damorbel (talk) 10:11, 19 February 2014 (UTC)

Should we move this to the cattle page?

That's what was done with the "Cow" page.71.92.222.170 (talk) 17:15, 22 October 2014 (UTC)

• I think that it is fine where it is, given the unique cultural significance attached to bulls. bd2412 T 17:26, 22 October 2014 (UTC)
  • bd2412 is correct; also, it was actually split from the cattle article. The original article "cow" was about cattle, it was a title move. A separate article on female cattle might be approriate somewhere down the line, but the need is not great - the section of the cattle article on females is not so large as to warrant a spinoff yet. Montanabw^(talk) 04:27, 23 October 2014 (UTC)

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Bulls

Bulls are stronger then cows. 2402:3A80:DCF:6891:0:46:D41A:3801 (talk) 06:52, 22 January 2022 (UTC)

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Holstein Friesian Bull

I'm sorry, but the animal in that picture just isn't scary-looking enough to be called a "bull". Most people would call it a "cow". May I replace it with a picture of a more masculine Holstein Friesian bull? Countryboy603 (talk) 00:55, 13 June 2023 (UTC)

Those people would be sorely wrong. Its an entire male too, not a steer. Traumnovelle (talk) 06:17, 4 May 2026 (UTC)

Survival rate

From the article: "fewer than one in 20 victims of a bull attack survives"

(1) According to the source, it's "about one in 20", not "fewer than one in 20".

(2) I find this 'statistic' hard to believe. This source suggests a much higher survival rate (about 77%).

~2026-26934-13 (talk) 21:50, 3 May 2026 (UTC)

(And those are only the cases where traumatic injury was inflicted, so the actual survival rate is higher still.) ~2026-26934-13 (talk) 21:56, 3 May 2026 (UTC)

Good spotting. The source is just an informational poster without a citation for the claim, and given the source you have provided plus my own experience the one in twenty claim is unlikely. Traumnovelle (talk) 06:16, 4 May 2026 (UTC)