Vocabulary – All About Farm Animals!
I began this post after an English learner on Facebook asked about the names of baby animals. I soon realized we have a lot of other words associated with animals, like different words for male & female animals, words for their meat, and words for the sounds they make, so I decided to write a post with as many words as I could think of for animals! It became a very long list, so I decided to focus on a specific group of animals in this post: farm animals.
Farm animals in North America are collectively called livestock (cows, horses, pigs, etc.). Poultry is the collective term for birds raised on a farm for meat and eggs (chicken, ducks, turkey, etc.).
Farm animals have been domesticated. They are animals that have been tamed and trained for work (or to live with humans). The opposite of tamed and domesticated animals is wild animals (or animals that live in the wild).

Cattle
(commonly known as ‘cows’)
– a male is a bull
– a male that has had its sex organs removed & is used mainly for meat is a steer
– a female is a cow
– a baby is a calf
– a group of cattle is a herd, (a herd of cattle, a herd of cows)
– meat from cattle is called beef, meat from calves is called veal
– the sound a cow makes is moo*
NOTES:
*Moo is an example of onomatopoeia, a word created to imitate a sound (in this case, a sound that an animal makes); in English there is often a verb to describe the way an animal makes a sound, and a noun to represent the sound

Chickens
– a male chicken is a rooster
– a female chicken is a hen
– a baby is a chick
– a hen lays eggs; when the chicks hatch (come out of the eggs), the hen has a brood of chicks
– a group of chickens is a flock, (a flock of chickens)
– a chicken clucks (verb) to make a sound, and the sound it makes is cluck (noun)
– meat from a chicken is … chicken
NOTES:
– chick is also a slang word for a young girl (it is sometimes considered offensive)
– a brood is also used to describe all the children in a big family

Donkeys
– a male donkey is a jack or a jackass
– a female donkey is a a jenny
– a baby donkey is a colt or a foal
– a donkey brays (verb) when it makes a sound, and the sound it makes is hee haw (in American English) or eeyore (in British English, where the ‘r’ is not pronounced)
– donkeys are kept on farms mainly for labour, not for their meat
NOTES:
– donkeys are thought to be dumb animals, so the term jackass now also means a stupid person in English (it is a very impolite & sometimes offensive word)
– Eeyore is also the name of the donkey in the stories of Winnie-the-Pooh

Goats
– a male goat is a buck or a billy (a billy goat)
– a female goat is a nanny (a nanny goat)
– a baby goat is a kid (yes, the same word for a young human!)
– a goat bleats (verb), but there is no word for the sound it makes
– meat from a goat is called … goat meat

Horses
– a male horse is a stallion; if the horse is used to breed (to produce more horses), it is called a stud
– a female horse is a mare
– a baby horse is a foal (male – colt, female – filly)
– the sound horse makes is neigh; a horse also whinnies (makes a high sound)
– horse meat is not eaten in North America
NOTES:
– a pony is a small horse (it could mean a child horse, or it could mean a breed of horses that is smaller than others)
– stud is also a word used jokingly to describe a young, attractive man who has no problem finding women to have sex with; an even funnier term is stud muffin
– the word horse is used in a lot of idioms in English; here’s one of them:
Wild horses couldn’t drag it out of me! = I will not tell you my secret [‘it‘ = secret information]!

Pigs
– a male pig is a boar
– a female pig is a sow
– a baby pig is a piglet; a female pig gives birth to a litter of piglets
– the sound a pig makes is oink
– pig meat is called pork
NOTES:
– pigs can’t fly, but a common expression in English is when pigs fly, meaning something will never happen!
He says he’ll get a Mac when pigs fly!
It can also be used to answer a question:
“Do you think you’ll get into Harvard?”
“When pigs fly!”

Sheep
*The singular & plural forms of sheep are the same: 1 sheep, 2 sheep, 3 sheep etc.
– a male sheep is a buck or ram
– a female sheep is a ewe
– a baby sheep is a lamb
– a group of sheep is a flock (a flock of sheep)
– when a sheep bleats (verb), the sound it makes is baa
– the meat from an adult sheep is called mutton; the meat from a lamb is … lamb
NOTES:
– in North American pop culture, counting sheep has become a common reference for sleep or insomnia (the inability to sleep); people who can’t sleep are told to imagine sheep jumping over a fence and then count them – a task so boring that it is supposed to put the person back to sleep!
– it doesn’t work, but in pop culture sheep have become a symbol for sleep!

Turkey
– a male turkey is a tom
– a female turkey is a hen
– a baby turkey is a poult
– the sound a turkey makes is gobble
– meat from a turkey is … turkey
NOTES:
– a turkey is also a play or film that is failure or a flop, and it is also a silly, stupid, foolish person
– if you quit something cold turkey (like smoking), you just stop doing it, suddenly and completely, with no help
– here’s a Wikipedia article with a list of names for Turkey in different languages
All this vocabylaries are everything I needed to teach my nex english class. thak you very for sharing this we us, english Teachers.
That’s great, Denis! I hope your students enjoy your lesson on animals. Good luck to you! = )
This post was extremely interesting! Here in Brazil we’ve the same meaning for stud, jackass and kid to describe people. The meaning for counting sheep is similar.
In English the word Turkey means a country from Western Asia or a bird. Translating the word Turkey to Portuguese is “Peru”. In Portuguese Peru is a South American country which capital is Lima (same in English) or a bird. It’s funny!
That’s funny about the word ‘turkey’! This kind of bird only exists in Canada & the northern U.S., so other languages had to make up words for it. I can imagine that it looks very strange to people from other countries!
= )
Turkey bird also exists in Brazil.
Hi, Vinicius!
Notice that I didn’t call it a ‘turkey bird.’ It’s just a ‘turkey.’ The country is with a capital ‘T,’ Turkey, and the animals is with a small case ‘t,’ turkey.
= )
Hey teacher Melanie,
Thanks for all the great content on your website. It helps me brush up on my English before having to speak it at home once I’ll have children.
You may also add the following (I let you check before because I’m not a native speaker):
– a rooster crows
– when a mare has a foal in her womb, she is in foal
– a sheep also baas (not sure there’s a difference with bleating as I didn’t grow up in a farm)
also a female cow that has not yet had a baby is called a heifer (heffur)
thank you for everything love your teachings
nice and very useful