Why didn't the number of cows explode in ancient times when the slaughter of cows was banned?

If the slaughter of pigs had been banned in ancient times, the number of pigs would have "exploded", but the slaughter of cattle had been banned in ancient times, the number of cattle has been very stable, until the beginning of the modern era, cattle can be slaughtered at will, the number of cattle began to increase dramatically, as of 2021, the global inventory of beef cattle reached 996 million head.

So, why has cattle slaughter been banned in ancient times, and why hasn't the cattle population exploded? Let's talk about this interesting question.

Why has cattle slaughter been banned in ancient times?

All domesticated animals are domesticated from wild animals, and domestic cattle are no exception. Their ancestors were bison, and the original cattle were once widely distributed across Eurasia before becoming extinct in the 17th century due to man-made over-hunting.

From the current archaeological point of view, domestic cattle were first domesticated 8,000 years ago, and the domestication of domestic cattle is of great significance to human beings, because human beings began to plant crops about 12,000 years ago, and as the types of crops planted and the size of the area gradually increased, the physical exertion of human beings was also enormous.

Before the cattle were domesticated, humans only domesticated dogs, sheep, and pigs, none of which were able to ride as well as assist in agricultural planting, while cattle are different, they are large, durable, and eat grass, the whole body's strength. When the ox was domesticated, mankind had its first rideable animal, and with the domestication of the ox, a number of agricultural tools came into being, at which point the ox became mankind's primary means of animal power.

While donkeys, horses and other animals were domesticated afterward, they were far inferior to the ox compared to its use in agriculture.

China is a large agricultural country, since ancient times, mainly rely on agricultural cultivation, and the cattle as the main animal power tools in the agricultural era, it is irreplaceable, so over time, people also injected more emotion into the cattle.

From the establishment of the feudal dynasties in China, can not slaughter cattle has been written in the decree, for example, in the period of Qin and Han dynasty stipulates that the slaughter of cattle is to kill the head, to the Sui and Tang dynasties, the slaughter of cattle, although the crime is not to death, but will be sent to prison for a year, the Song dynasty, the slaughter of cattle to be sent to a thousand miles and serve a year of imprisonment, even to the Qing dynasty, slaughtering of cattle is also about the same sentence with the Song dynasty. It can be seen that in ancient times, cow slaughter is a big crime, and the law is also very sound protection of cattle.

China's real freedom to slaughter cows began during the Republican period, but after the founding of New China, people rarely killed their own cows for meat, and at most they sold them when they were old.

Therefore, the reason why cattle slaughtering has been prohibited in ancient times is because our country has experienced a long period of farming, and cattle are the most powerful tool of animal power in the farming era. In ancient times when there was a lack of clothes and clothing, if there was no legal constraints, cattle thieves would appear frequently, which led to the impact of farming as a whole.

Buffalo plowing in the south

Why hasn't the cattle population exploded even after thousands of years of banning cattle slaughter?

It is reasonable to say that an animal is only raised and not killed, they can usually reproduce from adulthood until old age, and the average lifespan of a cow is around 20 years, domestic cattle have a reduced lifespan if they are used in service for a long period of time, averaging around 15 years, and a female cow becomes sexually mature from birth to around 1 year old, and after becoming pregnant, she has to go through a gestation period of 38-44 weeks, and then give birth to a calf.

At this rate of reproduction, a cow can leave at least 10 offspring in her lifetime, and these offspring will have calved long after the cow is old, so even though cows have a longer reproductive period and are less able to reproduce, they can theoretically explode in numbers.

So why were cattle populations more stable in ancient times? The problem lies in the fact that

People in the old days would rarely let cattle reproduce naturally. In the old days, when cattle were raised, although every family basically had one, there was usually only one per family, and people would rarely let them breed, so why was that? There are three reasons:

First: the cow has to be used. In the past, farming mainly relied on cattle, so people will be "good food and drink" to serve, for fear that they are sick, and the natural reproduction of cattle is widely banned because of the cattle's gestation period of up to half a year, as long as the pregnancy, the cattle can not be as hard as it used to be, especially the later months, the frequency of cattle should be forced to reduce the frequency of use. Reduced.

This means that once a cow is pregnant, it will be used less frequently for a long time, which was obviously not the case before.

This is like the hens in the old days, they instinctively "hugged the nest" phenomenon, but when the hens appeared this phenomenon, the owner will usually use all kinds of methods to let the hens "wake up hugging", the reason is that after the hens hugged the nest, they will stop laying eggs, and the chicks hatch, it will also be a few months, it is also a little more difficult for the chickens to hatch, so it is not necessary for the hens to "stop". The reason is that the hen will stop laying eggs after the nesting, and the chicks will hatch in a few months, which is a big loss for the people.

The cow is the same, in addition to the gestation period, there is also the nursing period, in the nursing period, the calf still have to follow the mother, so to go to the field labor is also very inconvenient, so in order to let the cow can work better, the previous people will rarely let the cow natural reproduction.

Second: the increase in food intake. I remember when I was a child, almost every day after school, I had to take the oxen to the field to graze them, but graze them was a good job, because all I had to do was to find a piece of lush grass and trees to smash the pegs into the soil, and then I could write homework in peace and catch insects to play.

However, in the winter, there are few cattle grazing, we in the north will usually hoard a lot of corn stalks in the fall, in the winter with a haystack to chop up the stalks for the cattle to eat, a fall hoard of a large stack of stalks, a cow in a winter can be consumed clean.

If the cow is allowed to get pregnant, then the cow's food intake will increase, after all, the calf needs more nutrients to develop in its body, and even after the calf is born, the mother's food intake will still be amazing, otherwise there will not be enough milk to nurse the calf.

It is important to realize that in the old days, every household basically had cows, and the stalks from the crops were left behind for their own use, so once a cow became pregnant, if she had to survive the winter, it was likely to result in a lack of food and malnourishment, which would interfere with farming at the beginning of the following spring.

Third: fewer females and more males. In ancient times, people raised cattle for one purpose only, that is, as a livestock tool, so what kind of cattle is more suitable for livestock tools? The answer is the cattle of great strength. And the size difference between the bull and the cow are very big, the same kind of case, the average weight of adult bulls if 800 kilograms, the weight of adult cows is 600 kilograms on the big.

This leads to the strength of the female bull is much smaller than the bull, in practical use, obviously the greater strength of the bull is more popular, so, in ancient times, cattle breeding male and female ratio is a serious imbalance, which also leads to the female cattle are much less likely to reproduce offspring.

Writing in the end

Cattle used to be indeed on the list of animals that were forbidden to be slaughtered, but due to the excessive dependence of ancient people on cattle, it resulted in the reproduction rate of cows being very low, and therefore there would not be an explosive growth in the number of cows.

And from the beginning of modern times, people began to slaughter cattle on a large scale, the number of cattle instead of climbing, this is because at present people have not relied on cattle as a tool of animal power, but instead of cattle as a major source of meat, so the gradual rise of large-scale breeding, the number began to explode growth.