Facts About Dairy Cows
by Lianne Derocco
There are about 60,000 dairy farms in the United States, and these farms produce 21 billion gallons of milk each year. The dairy cows that live on these farms are an integral part of one of our nation's most prominent industries. Here are a few facts about these important cows.
A good part of the dairy farms in the US are family owned of which each of these farms has about 130 dairy cows average, and these are producing up to 7 gallons of milk per cow each day. There are also small dairies with about a dozen cows only and also there are few with thousands of these dairy cows. Most of the nation's dairy cows can be found either in California or in Wisconsin. These cows are typically milked twice a day and these cows typically weigh about 1400 pounds.
Several different breeds of dairy cows are there and in the US, the Holstein breed is the most frequent one, and has to be noted that these were first bred in Holland. There are also other breeds including the Ayrshire, a breed originally coming from Scotland. There is also another type of dairy cow, the Brown Swiss breed, a type of cow coming from Switzerland, as the name suggests, and one of the oldest dairy cow breeds. There are also a few other types like the Guernsey breed and also Jersey breed, and these are dairy cows originating from England.
Contrary to popular belief a cow does not have four stomachs, rather the cow has one stomach with four compartments and each compartment has a specific function in the processing of food. A dairy cow eats about 100 pounds of food each day. This food generally is a combination of grain, hay, silage and sources of protein. Silage consists of corn and preserved grass.
Feeding and care of the dairy cows are daily concerns of the dairy farmer including daily harvesting of milk, and these are among the many concerns he has. Cows produce a lot of waste each day and part of his job is removing this waste and storing this in the waste pits or lagoons, although each cow also produces many gallons of milk every day.
Agricultural wastes such as these can be used as crop fertilizer, but there are also some common problems related to animal waste. Some of these include waste solidification at the bottom of the lagoons or waste pits causing heavy layers of sludge and another is crusting at the top layer. There is also another problem like pit foaming. There are natural products like Agra Sphere and Activator which use natural occurring bacteria to eat away at sludge and crust and these products also reduce foaming. These are manure treatments not containing chemicals but only bacterial microbes that act as digester of manure. These are also products that improve the nutrient value of the animal waste, and ultimately converting this to better fertilizers.
Lianne Derocco likes blogging about agricultural matters. To get further information about agricultural waste treatment solutions, please check out the <a href="http://www.bioverseag.com/">BioverseAG.com</a> website now or <a href="http://www.bioverseag.com/dairy-product-information/">click here</a>.
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New Unique Article!
Title: Facts About Dairy Cows
Author: Lianne Derocco
Email: articles@zerocompany.com
Keywords: dairy cows facts,agricultural waste products,livestock waste removal,sludge removal,livestock waste treatment,livestock waste management,livestock,farming,farm,agriculture
Word Count: 487
Category: Pets
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