masculine/feminine nouns

[yankumi]

I am using First Thousand Words in Japanese to teach my two children Japanese vocabulary. For steer, the word おうし　is given, for cow めうし　and for calf, こうし　

I understand こ　is used to describe a young animal, as in こねこ　Can I then use め
to designate any female animal, such as めねこ　or めらいおん　or does this only apply to the word cow

Ｔｈａｎｋ　ｙｏｕ

[skrhgh3b]

this prefix め probably comes from the word 雌(めす), which means female sex. so, i think your hunch is at least a safe one.

[Gaijinian]

お　Being　MALE　雄　おす

[yankumi]

Thank you for the answers. I was able to get a proper dictionary tonight, and it appears for another animals めす　would be the correct prefix to designate a female animal.