5 Differences Between Calfhide and Cowhide

For many, the greatest hang up on buying cowhide products is the difference between calfhide and cowhide. People are afraid. For a variety of reasons, they do not want to buy one when they mean to buy the other. So, it is important to disseminate the truth about these products.

And the truth is that they really are quite different. Here are the five biggest ways that is.

1. Cowhides are Tough, Calfhides are Soft

You will be able to feel the difference between cowhide and calfhide the moment you touch it. Cowhide comes from older animals. In fact, these animals are near the end of their lives.

Many modern animal husbandry techniques do this. The process is that cows are raised and fed not to be slaughtered once they reach a specific weight, but only harvested for their meat and other materials after they die of natural causes.

This makes a massive difference in how well the animals are treated. But more importantly to this conversation, it makes a massive difference in the feel of the animal’s hide.

Calfhides are, as you might have surmised, not taken from an animal at the end of their natural life. Calfhides are harvested from young cows that are slaughtered specifically because they are young. This means that their hides have not fully developed to protect them.

Underdeveloped hides are so soft that they are barely leather. They have more in common than cotton than any other kind of material. Therefore, you will know if what you are touching was made from a cow or a calf.

2. Cowhides are Cheap, Calfhides are Expensive

Given the previous point, this is a factor in the differences between cowhides and calfhides that not many people expect.

If a cowhide is procured at the end of a cow’s life, after it has undoubtably cost thousands of dollars to keep alive, shouldn’t the product made from its hide cost more in order to recoup that cost? It is only basic economics that a greater investment requires a greater return.

And that would be true if cowhide was as easily or frequently harvested as calfhide.

No, cowhide ends up being far cheaper in spite of the lifelong cost of making it. There are simply more cows than calves from which to harvest the hide.

And even if there were the same number of cows and calves, cows provide more hide by their very nature as larger, healthier beasts.

So, if touching a calfhide is not enough to alert you to the fact that it is not a cowhide, then the price tag most assuredly will.

3. Cowhides are big, Calfhides are Small

This is a byproduct of the fact that cows provide more hide than calves. You simply will not be able to make the same decorations or clothing out of calfhides.

This partly has to do with the part of the body each hide is harvested from.

Cowhides can be taken from almost anywhere, though their specific body part will usually correspond with a specific article of clothing. Calfhides are so fragile that they will break if harvested from the wrong part of the body, making it impossible to use them for everything.

Simply put, if the product you find in the store is a whole carpet, then it certain is not going to be calfhide. A belt, however, is more likely to be calfhide, although that’s still not a guarantee due to the ubiquity of cowhide in many manufacturing processes.

4. Cowhides are low Maintenance, Calfhides are High Maintenance

This is a difference that will never occur to someone who only ever works with cowhide, and for that reason it can be one of the most important differences on this list.

Imagine you have two sets of gloves. One is cowhide and the other is calfhide. As you might be able to predict at this point, the cowhide gloves will be thicker and tougher, whereas the calfhide gloves will have the advantage of being more fashionable.

Next, imagine something scratches each pair of gloves in the exact same way. For the sake of a consistent hypothetical, imagine that you are a handy sort of person who lives on the edge, so the damage is the result of a close shave with a circular saw.

This kind of close call might result in the cowhide gloves not even being visibly scratched. Meanwhile, the calfhide gloves will almost certainly require stitches to be fixed.

This does not mean calfhide gloves are horribly fragile. The circular saw example is, obviously, a rather dangerous example, and you are unlikely to wear away the same gloves if you are just wearing them around in cold weather.

5. Cowhide is Common, Calfhide is Uncommon

This is the difference that most frequently drives people to choose calfhide over cowhide. Cowhide is so common, and its manufacture so widespread, that acquiring products of that material has almost become too easy.

Cowhide is like the blue jeans of animal materials: It is cheap, easy to make, and goes with everything. Now clearly, all of these are virtues and none of them are vices.

But one of the big motivators for anyone buying new decorations, clothes, or accessories is standing out. You do not want to go to someone’s house and find that they have the exact same cowhide rugs you do. Or worse, invite someone over and have them discover the same thing.

A calfhide rug, on the other hand, will not even give the appearance of being common. As stated before, it is uncommon for calfhide to be made into rugs in the first place. And that is on top of how different calfhide products look from cowhide versions of the same products.

You can’t go wrong with either material. They are both designed to be warm, comfortable, and fitting into the same aesthetic. But it is almost impossible for the consumer to think one is the other if they are armed with this information.