"A farmer will put a bell on a pregnant cow in..."
I didn't know that. But I do know that dairy cows are more likely to be belled than beef cattle, but I have no idea why.
In parts of Kansas (and, presumably, other places) where cows are still freeranged they use longhorns as herding animals. New calves are kept in a corral with a longhorn, and they imprint on it. When it's time to round them up they turn the longhorn out. It walks around the ranch and the cattle fall in behind it.
Keven, I've never run into the dark udder/pink udder thing. But when I lived up north there were an awful lot of cows with light colored udders.
Speaking of which, did you hear about the cattle car that overturned on the Interstate? Headlines referred to it as an udder disaster.
Back to hornsmithing. The thing about horn is how easily it is worked. You can use handtools, for instance, to scrape and carve a horn. And if you boil it it softens, and can be easily worked like plastic. So, for instance, the hook & loop fasteners Kevin refers to can be made by softening and flatening a horn, cutting it into triangles, and rolling them from the pointy end. When they cool they'll reharden into that shape. Drill a hole through it, and there you go. Or the same technique can be used to make sheets of horn, which are then cut into spoon shapes, resoftened, and the spoon modled. Etc.
The difference between horn and antler is threefold. First, horns are permanent That is, the animal doesn't lose them. Antlers, on the other hand, are temporary, and are grown new each year. Second, both genders grow horns, although the females usually have smaller ones. Only males grow antlers. And third, and most important from a crafting viewpoint, horn is hollow and mallable whereas antler is solid (actually, spongy) and woodlike. This seriously affects how it is used.
Even decorative elements are determined by the material. Horn, most commonly, is decorated by scrimshawing, whereas antler is decorated mostly by carving.
