Online dating isn't just for humans anymore.
A website has been created in France to help farmers find the perfect mate for their cows and increase their herds.
A group of breeding associations debuted the site, called trouverlebontaureau.com, in October during France's Farming Summit, according to Discovery News. The name translates to "finding the right bull" in English, and the site has the appearance of a traditional online dating site... except the hundreds of profiles are that of bulls.
Farmers can log on to look at bulls and their family trees to determine their breeding, and they can also provide information about their cows like her age and race. They can also provide characteristics they are looking for to improve their herd, such as milk, growth, muscular development and calving skills.
Among the bulls presented on trouverlebontaureau.com are Arlequin, a Blonde d'Aquitaine that has a "Parisian elegance," and Euskadi, a cream-colored bull looking for "females who live for blondes," Discovery News reported.
However, bulls and cows won't have the opportunity that humans who date online have of meeting each other in person, as a specimen of the bull's semen will be sent to the farmer for artificial insemination instead. Farmers will be able to choose between male and female calves.
Pascal Soulas of Charolais Univers, a company that carries out artificial inseminations, says processes such as this give farmers the chance to breed the most profitable animals, Discovery News reported.
"Today the size of farms has doubled and there is often only one son looking after the farm after his parents grow too old to help him," Soulas said. "He needs docile cows who can give birth without his intervention or that of a veterinarian."
The creators of trouverlebontaureau.com plan on making the site available in English, Spanish, Italian and Chinese in order to give farmers are the world the same chance to match their cows with the perfect bull.
