A giant cow which stands more than 1.95m tall and weighs the same as a family hatchback car is so large he has been saved from a visit to the abattoir.

Knickers, the seven-year-old Holstein Friesian steer, is more than twice the size of the rest of his herd on a property in Myalup, Western Australia.

To put his size into perspective, Knickers is almost as tall as NBA superstar Michael Jordan.

The bovine behemoth stands head and shoulders above his mates and weighs in at an incredible 1.4 tonne.

Owner Geoff Pearson told media site Perth Now that Knickers’ size could even save his life, as he is far too big for the local abattoir.

Butchers say the giant cow would produce more than 635kg of trimmed “saleable” beef, and enough for 450 cuts of steak and 370kg of mince.

Holstein-Friesians are a dairy breed and normally weigh about 680kg and stand about 1.2m tall.

Even the breed’s bulls only reach about 1.7m and weigh 998kg.

Mr Pearson — whose cow is the biggest of its breed in Australia, and possibly the world — said he wasn’t sold on the idea of heaving Knickers through a small abattoir processor, so he would remain on the farm.

“It was too heavy,” Mr Pearson said. “I wouldn’t be able to put it through a processing facility. So I think it will just live happily ever after.”

The owners bought Knickers for about $AU396 as a “coach” to take charge of the herd.

He is technically a steer — which is a castrated male bovine.

Mr Pearson continued: “When he was young, when we first got him, we had a Brahman steer which was a friend of his,” he said.

“So his name was bra … so we (had) bra and knickers. We never thought he would turn into a big knickers.”

An enormous steer in Western Australia is making headlines. At 194cm 'Knickers' is the largest in his category in Australia. https://t.co/TJPF4KC2uY #Myalup #7News pic.twitter.com/pAnwBoJr45 — 7 News Sydney (@7NewsSydney) November 27, 2018

Mr Pearson, who has about 20,000 cattle, revealed the giant is also a big hit with the other cattle, who follow him around the paddocks in their hundreds.

Many of the cattle are wagyu and are dark brown, so mighty Knickers stands out even more in a pack because of his white and black colouring.

Despite his giant size, the towering farm animal is amazingly not the tallest cow ever recorded.

In 2010, a Chianina ox named Bellino measured in at just over 2m at a cattle show in Rome.

This story originally appeared in The Sun and has been republished here with permission.