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Why do we domesticate some animals but not others? It's all about the four Fs.

Here's the real reason why you can't ride a zebra.

Photo credit: Canva

Horses were domesticated over 5,000 years ago. Zebras, never.

Humans have domesticated several kinds of animals over the millennia, from trusty horses and mules to livestock for milk and meat to our favorite furry companions. But why those specific animals and not others? What is it that led us to those particular choices? Why can we ride horses but not zebras? Why don't we purposefully breed "war bears" to fight for us?

That last question comes straight from the always-interesting and often-hilarious CGP Grey, whose YouTube videos explore all kinds of things we wonder about but don't necessarily take the time to research. In the video "Why Some Animals Can't Be Domesticated," Grey explains the four main elements that make an animal a good candidate for domestication, which excludes bears (and many others) from the list.

Grey alliterated the four elements to make them easier to remember: Friendly, Feedable, Fecund, and Family-Friendly. Let's dig into what those mean.


- YouTube www.youtube.com

Domestication requirement #1: Friendly

This one is fairly self-explanatory, but basically an animal has to not post an inherent, immediate threat. We have to be able to catch them if we're going to domesticate them, so that eliminates all of the "carnivores whose day job is murder" as Grey puts it, as well as the large, nervous prey animals that are too afraid of us to let us get anywhere near them.

wild animals, domesticated animals, gazelle Good luck trying to catch a gazelle.Photo credit: Canva

Domestication requirement #2: Feedable

Every animal is feedable, of course, but that doesn't mean it's easy or cheap to feed them, especially in large numbers. This category pretty much eliminates pure carnivores and some omnivores, leaving mostly herbivores (and some unpicky omnivores) that are easy and cheap to feed. And that aren't dangerous (see #1).


wild animals, domesticated animals, chickens, chicken feed Chickens will eat just about anything.Photo credit: Canva

Domestication requirement #3: Fecund

This requirement is all about breeding and babies. Some animals are extremely slow to breed, like pandas and elephants, making them undesirable candidates for domestication. Animals that have mate frequently and have relatively short gestation times and/or large litters are more suited to domesticated life. They also need to grow up quickly, which also takes elephants out of the pool.

However, as Grey points out, humans can still tame other animals like elephants. But taming is not the same as domesticating. The basic rule is: If it's on a farm, it's domesticated. If it's in a circus, it's tamed.

Domestication requirement #4: Family-friendly

This is where the horses and zebras question comes in. Horses were domesticated in Eurasia, but if humans started in Africa, why weren't zebras domesticated first? Grey explains that while horses tend to live in hierarchical herds, zebras are more independent with no family structure. Humans can capture the lead male horse and get the rest of the herd to fall in line. Zebra herds are more of a free-for-all and they're kind of jerks to even one another.

While it would seem that horses we see in the United States today are indigenous, the North American horse species went extinct around 10,000 years ago. They were reintroduced to America by 16th-century European colonialists who spread them throughout the country through Native American trade routes.

horses, zebras, domesticated animals, wild animals There's actually a big difference between horses and zebras besides just the stripes.Photo credit: Canva

Barnyard animals have inherent family structures that humans have figured out how to fit into. These animals learn to see the humans who own them as a lead cow, top chicken, or whatever.

Way back in the hunter-gatherer age, when humans were just figuring out animal domestication, animals had to have all four of these requirements. Today, we have the ability and technology to domesticate more animals if we want to, but we also have less of a need to. Some breeds of foxes have recently been domesticated, bred to be friendly with humans. How fun would it be to have a pet fox? Foxes are incredibly cute but wildly intelligent. So good luck keeping one in your backyard for very long.

- YouTube www.youtube.com

Technically, a lot more animals could be domesticated if people really wanted to put in multiple human lifetimes of time and effort, but why?

You can follow CGP Grey on YouTube for more fun and informative videos.

This article originally appeared in April.

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Matt Nuckols wants you to know a thing or two about dairy farm life.

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America’s Dairy Farm Families and Importers

This is Cinderella. But she's not a princess — she's a cow.

And not just any cow; Cinderella happens to be one of the most popular cows in all of Virginia.

Matt and Cinderella on the farm. Photo courtesy of Matt Nuckols/Eastview Farm.

Cinderella and her owner, dairy farmer Matt Nuckols, make regular appearances around the state. They’ve been to schools, agriculture clubs, competitions, state fairs, and more. Cinderella has even met the past five Miss Virginias and the governor's wife.

Matt and his cows are on a mission to show people, firsthand, what it's like to live and work on a dairy farm.

Eastview Farm has been in Matt's family for decades. It started as a more traditional operation in the mid-1940s — "kind of the Old MacDonald-type farm," Matt says — before his grandparents started the dairy portion of the business in 1955. The farm was passed to Matt's dad, F.C., and uncle, Wayne, who then passed it on to Matt and his cousin Taylor.

From left to right: Matt, Taylor, Elsie, Wayne, and F.C. Nuckols standing on their family farm in Beaverdam, Virginia. Photo courtesy of Eastview Farm.

The cousins have been working on the farm for as long as they can remember. "I started feeding calves as the first job I worked," Matt says. "I was about 5 or 6 years old."

Technically, F.C. and Wayne are retired now, but that doesn't really mean much. "My dad only works about 13 hours a day," Matt laughs. "They're cutting back."

This connection between family and farming is actually pretty common across the country. According to the 2012 census of agriculture, 98% of farms in America are family-owned and -operated.

Eastview Farm is a beautiful place to live, both for the Nuckols and for their cows. Photo courtesy of Matt Nuckols/Eastview Farm.

Matt also attends events so he can show people what a living, breathing farmer is like.

He aims to combat some of the stereotypical ideas about farming he hears from people, many of whom have never met a dairy farmer or been on a farm themselves.

Some of the places he and Cinderella go are full of other farmers, like fairs, competitions, and cow shows. But they also go to schools and colleges to talk about dairy farming.

Matt often takes cows out into the community to teach adults and kids alike about farming. Photo courtesy of Matt Nuckols/Eastview Farm.

"A lot of it is just getting to meet a farmer," says Matt. "People see we actually come in different sizes and shapes and accents and musical preferences."

Matt also lets the people he meets know his strong opinions on the way he runs his farm with respect to how milk is made, how it's shipped, and how the cows are treated.

One of the ways that Eastview Farm holds itself accountable for the animals' well-being is through the National Dairy FARM Program — a third-party reviewer that makes sure participating dairies handle their cows with care. And Matt isn't alone in that — 98% of the milk supply in the United States comes from dairies enrolled in FARM.

He hopes to be able to get those messages across whenever he can — but of course, it depends on the audience. "Young kids mostly just want to know how much the cows weigh and how old they are and stuff," Matt says.

The Nuckols often participate in events and interact with people who are curious about dairying. Photo courtesy of Matt Nuckols/Eastview Farm.

But with the parents and teachers who accompany them, Matt can open a direct dialogue about dairy practices, from antibiotics and organics to the size of the farm and beyond.

As long as people are willing to listen, Matt's going to keep talking about what he does.

"People want to know so much more about their food — where it comes from, how it got to the store, and how the cows are treated," Matt says. "And I know they're gonna get information from somebody. So we really want to get out there and give them the information ourselves."

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Robot cheesemakers and bovine pickpockets: What you don't know about life on a dairy farm.

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If you ask Warren Chamberlain, Dairylain Farms could easily be the inspiration for a pastoral landscape painting.

The dairy takes up about a quarter of the 400 sprawling acres of wide-open farmland that Warren and his son, Jason, own and operate alongside their wives, Lori and Mary.

All photos courtesy of Dairylain Farm.

"We have sunshine year-round, pretty much," Warren says. "We get very little rain. We’re actually in a desert, but it’s all irrigated, green, trees."

To the west of the farm sits a small mountain range, capped with snow that shines a brilliant white against an almost always blue sky.

"It’s just a beautiful place. You can’t beat it for raising kids and grandkids. And for livin'."

To the uninitiated, running a dairy sounds like hard, dirty, exhausting work. But according to the Chamberlains, the dairying life is worth the sacrifice of a little sweat.

Part of the joy they get from their work, says Warren, comes from the love of animals, specifically cattle, that's been passed through three generations.  "I believe anybody that's in dairy loves animals," he says. "Animals and land — you gotta love 'em both."

Dairylain Farms is home to a herd of about 450 Jersey cows that produce milk that the Chamberlains then sell to a mozzarella plant in Idaho to be made into delicious cheese. (Fun fact: The milk produced by Jersey cows is higher in butterfat than that of other cows, so it's prime milk for cheesemaking.)

Warren explains that the cows are very curious animals. "You walk out into our pen, you’re gonna get surrounded by 50 to 80 animals all wanting to smell you," he says.

And that curiosity can verge on the nefarious — farm workers have been known to have their barn radio switched off or their wallet picked by a mischievous member of the herd. "Anything you have in your pocket, you’d better hold onto it ‘cause if they see it, they’re gonna grab it and take off," Warren laughs.

The cows are so friendly that even Warren’s kids and grandkids can work with them. In fact, that’s another reason he loves the dairy so much.

"What other job can a dad or granddad have that they can have their kids or grandkids with them all day long — watch them grow up, teach them?" he asks. "Most people get their kids from five o’clock in the evening 'til bedtime. We get ‘em all day."

As enjoyable as the work is, Dairylain Farms is a business, and the Chamberlains, like many dairy farmers, have continuously needed to find ways to innovate to keep up with the times. For them, that involves ... robots.

That's right — instead of milking the cows, the Chamberlains own robots that automate the entire milking process. "The cows come to the robot whenever they want," Warren says. "It cleans her, milks her, feeds her a little bit of grain, and sends her on her way."

The cows wear collars that monitor their health and activity levels, keep track of how often they’re milked, and send all that information to the Chamberlains. Each morning, Jason reviews the data to see if anything seems out of place — if a cow isn’t milking or if it’s walked less than normal or something else that might indicate a problem — and goes to check up on the animal himself. Automating the process helps the Chamberlains keep better, more accurate track of the health of their herd.

And for Warren, the health of the farm is the most important thing.

"You want to pass this stuff on through generations," Warren says. "And if you don’t take care of your cattle, you don’t take care of your land, you can’t pass it on."  

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Running a dairy takes a whole lot of love — for the cows, the farm, and the Earth.

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“I didn’t go out in life saying I’m gonna marry a dairy farmer,” Leann Krainick laughs, “but Cupid had other ideas.”

Leann started out her agricultural career creating specific feeds for different farm animals. She met Mike Krainick when the two were introduced by a mutual friend (a bull insemination specialist, no less) and the rest is, well, the rest is our story.

Today, the two have been married 18 years, and together, they run Krainick Dairy in western Washington, a farm that Mike's grandfather started in 1912. They raise Holstein, brown Swiss, and Jersey cows — smallish brown cows that produce high-butterfat milk, used to make cheese, ice cream, and other dairy products.

They've been operating the dairy for more than a decade, and one reason they still enjoy it so much is because it offers them such variety in their lives. “The day is never the same," Leann says. "We try very hard to make it routine because that’s what cows like, but you always have to expect the unexpected.”

All images courtesy of Krainick Dairy.

If Leann loves anything as much as her husband, it's their cows.

She knows each of them individually — there are quiet ones, cranky ones, silly ones, and ones that cause trouble. “We can walk through the barn and just by knowing their different characteristics or their hierarchy in the herd, we can tell if something’s wrong," Leann says.

Like what, you ask? It could be a health problem or it could be a mess caused by one of the more mischievous members of the herd.

“They like to find trouble,” Leann laughs. "They've opened a gate in the middle of the night, gotten into our yard, managed to turn on the faucet, and flooded our basement."

It's the Krainicks' love for their animals that drives them to run their dairy in the most environmentally friendly way possible.

They care deeply not only about their own farm, but also about the welfare of animals and the environment in general.

“The first thing people say when they come here is that it’s very green,” Leann says. And that’s true in more ways than one.

The dairy farm is not only green in the picturesque sense, but also when it comes to its sustainability goals. In fact, the other thing that people notice when they arrive is the odor. The air doesn’t smell like cows or manure, but like beer.

“Farmers have been feeding spent grain from breweries to animals for over a century,” Leann says. And that's exactly what Krainick Dairy does. It's also why their farm often smells like beer. It’s a sustainable way for local breweries to get rid of their waste and it also cuts costs on feed for their cows because spent grain makes economical and environmental sense.

That's not the only way they are working to be more sustainable. Another practice became so successful it formed a new offshoot of their business.

When the facility that hauled away their manure became full, the Krainicks had to find another way to get rid of their waste. Instead of carting it away, they bought a machine that turned the waste into bedding for the cows and sustainable manure for the soil.

Not only do they use this soil on their own farm, but they also started packaging it and selling it to other growers after a local pumpkin farmer began swearing by it to grow his prize-winning giant pumpkins. Now, the Krainicks go to the giant pumpkin competition every year, where the huge gourds are tapped and filled with beer for the fairgoers before being brought home for — you guessed it — the Krainicks' cows to eat and turn into more of that prize-winning soil.

Leann and Mike's soil business is just the most recent green initiative in the long history of their dairy.

Krainick Dairy has been passed down through generations, and with each owner, "sustainability and environment, they've always been at the forefront," Leann says. Mike's father and grandfather each did what they could to develop the farm with better, more accurate practices.

To demonstrate that, Leann collects old farm equipment to show how different technologies have been invented and used throughout time as farmers tried to take better care of their animals and land. In just the same way, Leann and Mike are constantly looking for the next bit of technology that will move their farm forward.

Though times and technologies will change, and Krainick Dairy with it, there's one thing above all that is always at the heart of their dairy. "The number one is family," Leann says. "That's top of the list."

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