A group of 12 cows is traditionally called a flink.

Quick Scoop

  • The everyday term for a group of cows is a herd , and that’s what most people and farmers say in practice.
  • In older or more playful English, “kine” can also mean a group of cows, but “flink” is specifically used for twelve or more cows.
  • Modern dictionaries rarely include “flink,” so it shows up most in trivia lists, animal-fact sites, and library or zoo education posts.

Little language nugget

  • Many animals have quirky collective nouns (a murder of crows, a parliament of owls), and “flink of cows” sits in that same fun, somewhat obscure category.
  • If you say “a herd of 12 cows,” you are still perfectly correct in normal conversation; “flink” is more of a curiosity or trivia answer than a term used on real-world farms.

So if a quiz asks “What is a group of 12 cows called?”, the standout answer they are looking for is: a flink.

Information gathered from public forums or data available on the internet and portrayed here.