Considering the fact that June is Dairy month I assumed I would share what I acquired increasing up on a dairy farm. Getting developed up on a dairy farm I know the endeavours it takes to care for a dairy herd and the get the job done that goes into it.
Dairy farming is a 365 working day a calendar year task with milkings at least two times a working day, if not a few occasions, until you are a seasonal dairy. Even if seasonal dairying, a single still has to get treatment of animals and make guaranteed they get a great deal of food stuff and water so that they will remain healthful and be productive when they have their future calf.
A feminine calf is a heifer calf, she continues to be a heifer until finally she has a calf and results in being an grownup or cow. An aged cow is normally referred to as a cow five many years previous or older. Most persons do not understand that a cow need to have a calf in buy to commence developing milk.
Cows are offered a rest interval in between milking and calving. That is what is referred to as a dry cow due to the fact she isn’t providing milk any additional. A milk cow usually has her to start with calf at two decades of age when she is referred to as a very first calf heifer.
There are 6 breeds of milk cows in the US. They are Holstein, Ayrshire, Brown Swiss, Guernsey, Jersey and Milking Shorthorn. A Holstein calf weighs about 100 kilos at start and will get to weights of 1,400 lbs or a lot more as a cow. A cow is capable to try to eat grass and other solutions that we can not try to eat due to the fact that they are ruminants. Cattle are ruminants, meaning that they have four belly compartments and they chew their cud.
At reasonable time, I ask the youthful persons in the county what the four pieces of a cow’s tummy are. The four parts of a cow’s belly are the rumen (or paunch), the reticulum, omasum and abomasum (or true tummy, which is very similar to the human stomach). When ruminant eats, it chews foods only plenty of to moisten it for swallowing. Soon after currently being swallowed, the food items goes into the rumen to be softened by digestive juices. Following the animal has eaten its fill, it finds a tranquil position to chew its cud. It burps up a mass of food items alongside with some liquid, swallows the liquid component, and then chews the mass comprehensively right before swallowing it and burping up some extra. The rechewed meals goes into the omasum, where by the liquid is squeezed out, and then goes on into the abomasum.
Ruminants created this way of consuming so that they could cram in a good deal of feed whilst grazing in open meadows and then retreat to a protected, secluded position to chew additional absolutely. Cattle do very well on a broad wide variety of feeds. We pasture grazed our cows most of the yr and in the wintertime we feed them in the barn. We elevated various crops like alfalfa, Timothy, clover, etcetera. creating hay in the summer and saved it for winter use or when pasture was in shorter offer. We supplemented cow’s weight loss plans with feed when they had been in the parlor remaining milked. We raised corn that was chopped while it was eco-friendly for silage and saved it in a silo or trench. We remaining some corn stand for grain generation that was employed in the feed concentrate. Processing the grains by rolling, crimping, cracking or grinding increased its digestibility when fed to dairy animals.
In the spring time the cows would consume garlic and the milk would scent like it. We would beg our mother to purchase us milk when that transpired. We drank raw milk correct out of the milk tank and built homemade ice product. The dairy farm I grew up on belonged to my good uncle and is no for a longer time in my family members. I have a brother who dairy farms in Pennsylvania with his two sons, so I continue to get to take a look at and get my fill of the dairy farm. I took treatment of the heifer calves in the early morning and evenings from the time I was in the eighth grade as a result of significant school. I also assisted with milking, feeding and hay earning in the summer months. It was a fantastic way to grow up.
Dairy Industry Details
The annual output of milk in the U.S. during 2018 was 217.6 million lbs. Output per cow in the U.S. averaged 23,149 pounds of milk for 2018. The ordinary cow provides enough milk each individual day to fill 6.3 gallon jugs, 55 kilos of milk. All 50 states in the U.S. have dairy farms with 23 states deemed major dairy producers. The prime 5 dairy states in 2016 were: 1. California 2. Wisconsin 3. New York 4. Idaho and 5. Pennsylvania. The normal cow beverages from 30 to 50 gallons of drinking water each individual working day — about a bathtub’s worthy of.Cows have an acute perception of odor and can odor some thing up to 6 miles absent. Cows arrived with the Jamestown settlers in 1611. Tank vans for transporting fluid milk have been first released in 1914.
Sources: USDA Nationwide Agricultural Studies Provider Intercontinental Dairy Foodstuff Association, USDA
Until eventually following time… Happy Gardening and Farming!
———
Mary Beth Bennett, Ph.D. is a WVU Extension agent and associate professor. She can be attained at 264-1936, [email protected] on the web at http://extension.wvu.edu/berkeleyWVU is an EEO/Affirmative Action Employer –Minority/Woman/Disability/VeteranMary Beth Bennett400 West Stephen Street, Suite 302, Martinsburg, WV 25401