Cow seat grass, hay, corn, oats and alfalfa. They also eat soybeans, cottonseed and peanut meal, almond hulls, chicken feathers, fish and pumpkins. Cows do not have any upper front teeth so they use their tongues to pull grass. They will graze up to 8 hours a day consuming over 100 pounds of food. Cows need to drink 25 to 50 gallons of water a day. That is nearly a bathtub full! To make 1 gallon of milk, a cow must drink 2 gallon of water.
Typically, a cow lives about 25 years. The oldest cow on record was Big Bertha who died 3 months shy of her 49 th birthday. During her lifetime, a cow spends 13 hours a day lying down and gets up an average of 14 times. Each day, she produces 65 pounds of poop!
A cow will breed when she is about 2 years old and will give birth, usually to a single calf in nine months. A newborn calf weighs between 80-100 pounds. The largest calf born weighed 225 pounds! That's a BIG baby!
Farmers use cows primarily for milk and meat. Dairy cows, those used for milk, can give over 6 gallons of milk each day. A healthy cow gives about 200,000 glasses of milk in her lifetime. What a cow eats affects how much milk she makes and how it tastes. A cow that eats only grass can give about 50 glasses of milk a day. A cow that eats grass, corn, hay and mixed feeds can produce about 100 glasses of milk a day.
Milk is used to make butter, cream, yogurt, whipped cream, cottage cheese and cheese. It takes 12 pounds (5.6 quarts) of milk to make 1 gallon of ice cream.It takes 10 pounds (4.6 quarts) of milk to make 1 pound of cheese.
Beef cows, those used for meat provide not only food, but also a variety of other products. Industrial cleaners, fertilizer, pot cleaners, brass and tooth polish. Glue made from cow's blood is used to make plywood. The horns and hooves provide the proteins that make foam for fire extinguishers. Stearic acid makes rubber hold its shape and is used in automobile and bicycle tires.Gelatin is used in pie crust, jelly beans, marshmallows and photographic film. One cowhide can make 144 baseballs or 20 footballs or 18 soccer balls or 12 basketballs.
Did you know? Dairy cows can produce up to 200 pounds of flatus (farts and burps) a day!
Red Barn Farm has been home to a variety of breeds of cows: Jersey, Holstein andHereford. Jersey cows are brown. They give less milk than Holsteins, but more cream. Holstein cows are the black and white spotty cows. They are larger than Jersey cows and give more milk. No two Holstein cows have the exact same spots. Hereford cows are large red cows used for beef. Most recently, Red Barn Farm has been the home to a herd of mostly Belted Galloways, a breed easily recognized by their black front and hind quarters and white belt around the middle.
