Maintaining Bovine

This essay concluding the special issue "Bovine Regimes" reflects on the consequences of applying technological terms and ideals to nonhuman animals. Dealing with more recent theoretical provocations of "maintenance" in the field, the essay outlines how U.S. scientists used "maintenance" to both measure and define cattle bodies in the early twentieth century. Metabolic maintenance numbers signaled thresholds to meet and surpass in the production of meat and milk for human consumption. Just meeting this threshold, however, had crucial significance for keeping bovine companions alive. This essay explains the significance of the term "maintenance" in the cattle industry and encourages more discussion about what it means to "maintain animals," particularly agricultural animals, in the history of technology.