[bityard]

No, farm cattle have numbers because that's the most efficient way to keep track of them. The farms might be large, and the cattle might change ownership at various stages. It just doesn't work to name them, just like naming computers in a datacenter doesn't scale past a certain point.

And as a counter-example, I know families in the rural midwest that name their livestock while raising them. The important bit is that they teach the children the difference between pets and livestock early on so it doesn't come as a shock to them that their dinner was grazing out on the back 40 just the other day. It's only shocking to those who aren't acquainted with the realities of agriculture life.