Many have received the chain email about owning two cows and how different politicians would deal with it If you were to breed one cow and one bull how long until you get a herd?

Well, for one thing there will be a lot of inbreeding and line-breeding going on to produce a herd; that is never a good thing. But really, you already have a herd with just two animals. In order to build up to a bigger herd, without any outside influences and in an ideal world with no illnesses, genetic defects, or environmental hazards, you'd have to be mating the sire to daughters and granddaughters, not to mention the dam herself, to build up your herd. The dam, if she lives to a ripe old age of 20+ years, will be able to produce maybe 18 calves in her lifetime. Of those 18 calves, maybe 50% are female. Half of those females could be mating with their brothers to get 18 more calves each. And so on and so forth.

But in reality, it will never work that way. A cow almost always lasts longer than a bull does in a breeding herd, and inbreeding and line-breeding is taboo unless you are working to purify your purebred herd. And many cows don't live as long as 20+ years. Many heifers aren't even kept because they haven't met the standards that the farmer or rancher had established for keeping replacement females; only 20% of all heifers born are kept back as replacements. And these heifers that are kept back cannot be bred to their sire[s] which would be the herdbulls for the main cowherd; they have to be bred to younger, smaller, and unrelated bulls. As for the bulls themselves, many a cow-calf operation steer ALL of their bull calves, and keep zero back as herd bulls. If there are any bull calves that are kept intact, they are all sold to other farms and ranches that need them more than the seller does. And, if one or two bulls are kept back, they cannot be exposed to any kin of their own: mother, sisters, aunties, cousins, grandmothers, 2nd or 3rd cousins, great aunties, etc. They have to breed those females that are unrelated to them. And bulls that are kept back are the best growing, the best conformational bulls that have great parents. In short, they have to be superior to the other bull calves that are born that year or to even his own sire to be kept intact and used for breeding. Lastly, many bulls only last 4 or 5 years as herd bulls before they have to be shipped off to the slaughter plant, because they tend to get a little too smart as how to intimidate and threat their human owner with their greater size and strength.