Farmyard and Domestic Animals Trivia Quiz

Answer: Gilt

A gilt is a young female pig that is usually about to be bred to have her first litter of piglets. Pigs mature quickly, and most gilts have their first litters between the ages of six and nine months old. Once they have had their first litter they become known as sows. A boar is a male pig - specifically one that has not been castrated.

Miss Piggy is a female pig character from "The Muppets" television show. Technically, she appears to be too old to be a gilt, but does not appear to have any offspring, so not a sow either. Maybe a pig expert can advise.

Answer: Barrow

Unless they are being raised specifically for breeding, most young male pigs are castrated when they are around two or three weeks old, and are then technically known as barrows. If not castrated, they become boars. Barrows are normally raised for meat and are slaughtered at around four to six months old if used for pork, or as old as ten months for bacon.

A stallion is an uncastrated male horse, while a marrow is a fruit that is normally eaten as a vegetable.

Answer: Molly

A mule is a cross-bred animal, the offspring of a female horse and a male donkey. A female mule is often referred to as a "molly" or "molly mule". Mules are born infertile, a genetic result of the cross-breeding process, although there have been rare instances of a female mule being bred and giving birth.

A hinny is similar to a mule, but is the offspring of a male horse and a female donkey. A nanny is a female goat, and Wendy is a generic girl's name.

Answer: Whelping

There are a range of different words than can refer to the process of specific animals giving birth. "Whelping" refers to dogs, and is derived from the Old English word "hwelp", meaning a pup or wolf cub.

"Calving" can refer to any animal whose young is known as a "calf", such as cows and whales. "Farrowing" is the process of pigs giving birth, and "hatching" is anything being born from an egg (birds, crocodiles, and suchlike).

Answer: Queening

The term comes from the somewhat archaic use of the word "queen" to refer to a female cat. It is possible to buy an expensive "queening box" for your pregnant cat, although (cats being what they are) she is just as likely to find an inconvenient spot such as your bed or airing cupboard to give birth.

A cheaper alternative is to fill a cardboard box with a comfortable blanket, which will satisfy most felines.

Answer: Two

Female horses have four mammary glands, but (oddly enough) only two teats. Their mammary glands come in two pairs, with each pair being joined together in such a way that the milk exits through a single teat. Most horses only have a single foal, so two teats are more than sufficient.

Answer: Lambs

As any child could tell you, baby sheep are called lambs. Baby goats are kids, and calves are baby cows. And you can't be reminded too often that a puffling is a baby puffin.

Answer: True

Gomer bulls are generally used on dairy farms to detect cows in heat so that they can be bred using artificial insemination. They can also be called marker or tester bulls and are usually a steer, therefore infertile.

Answer: Assorted grunts

Sows use certain grunts to let the piglets know when they are lying down so that the piglets can get out of the way of their large and heavy mother and thus avoid getting squashed.

Answer: Gaggle

There appear to be an inordinate number of names for groups of geese. When they are on the ground they are generally known as a "gaggle", but when on water they become a "plump". Then once they have taken off and are in the air they become a "skein". When flying in the common "V"-shaped formation they may also be termed a "wedge".

One website I consulted lists various other terms such as chevron, cluster, Christmas, knob and bunch, but without any supporting citations. "Bunch of geese" especially sounds like a phrase you would use when you can't think of the proper term, as in "look at that bunch of geese over there."

Answer: Heifer

Heifers are usually under three years old. Once she has had her first calf she is officially a cow, although after having had her first calf she may be termed a "first-calf heifer".

A Hereford is a breed of cattle bred for its beef, and originating in the English county of Herefordshire. A steer is a male cow that has been castrated and is therefore unable to breed. A cowling isn't an animal at all, but a removable metal cover for an engine (especially an aircraft engine).

Answer: Gelding

The majority of male horses are castrated, or gelded, before they are twelve months old. Geldings tend to be calmer and easier to handle than stallions (uncastrated males), and are thus preferable for most working horses unless they are specifically being kept for breeding purposes.

A boar is an adult male pig. Dobbin is a generic pet name for a farm horse, which appears to date from sixteenth-century England and is a diminutive form of the name Robert.

Answer: Caprine

The term "caprine" originates in the Latin word "caprinus", meaning goat or goat-like. The other options are all Latin-based terms that refer to other groups of common farm animals. "Ovine" refers to sheep, "bovine" to cows and "porcine" to pigs.

Answer: Sheep

All of these are breeds of sheep that originated in the United Kingdom. The Welsh Mountain, as the name suggests, originated in the hillsides of Wales. The Cheviot is from the Cheviot Hills, on the border between England and Scotland. The Romney was first bred in the Romney Marsh area of Kent in South-east England, while the Herdwick is a hardy breed from the Lake District of Cumbria.

Answer: Up its nose

The sheep bot fly (Oestrus ovis) is a nasty little parasite which deposits its larvae in the nasal passages of sheep (and occasionally goats). The larva then makes itself comfortable and feeds off the nasal secretions of its host. Once it is sufficiently developed it crawls back out of the nasal passage and drops to the ground, where it forms a pupa from which an adult fly emerges in due course.

Unsurprisingly, if sheep become aware that adult bot flies are buzzing around, they will attempt to avoid infestation by burying their noses in the grass or the fleeces of fellow sheep.