question about cows - Writers Forum

starseed · 04-21-2008, 08:41 PM

*warning, this may be a stupid question but I know nothing about cows*

If you have a cow, will she automatically make milk? I mean milk is for baby cows so if she doesn't have a baby around will there be milk anyway? I know there are big dairies and the cows there make milk but I thought maybe there was something they do to them hormonally to make them.

In my book, there is a single cow on a small organic farm. Would she make milk and how often would she need to be milked? Also how often would she need to be fed, or do they just eat the grass? Twice a day? Also is there anything else that goes into their general care I should know about?

If anyone can help me out Id appreciate it, Ive been searching on google but a lot of stuff comes up about selling cows and livestock auctions and what not and not as much about how to actually care for the cow.

My book is not an in detail story about farming, its a story about people who meet while working on a farm, but I'd like the little details to be accurate as possible.

Thanks again!

Just Jim · 04-21-2008, 09:11 PM

OK, I'm not laughing, I swear.

You were on the right track. The cow has to have a baby to get things started, so there has to be a bull (male cow) around. But the farm doesn't have to have a bull, she can just visit a neighbor bull.

Once she has a calf, you can keep milking her for quite a while, like 2 years. Most people milk twice a day, and you can get over a gallon each time. Some people just let the cows eat grass, but most give them some grain (corn, wheat, oats) so they will make more milk.

sundara · 04-21-2008, 11:31 PM

most people raising cows on an organic farm just let them eat the grass. Cows are only supposed to eat grass. commercial farmers feed with corn because it makes them fat fast.
Also many organic farms let the cow wean the calf when she is ready and once the calf is older and established they will let the calf eat for the first feeding and then they will milk the second time during the day. Once the calf is fully weaned they will milk twice.

lin · 04-21-2008, 11:36 PM

You don't want to let cows eat green alfalfa. It blows up their stomach with gas and can kill them.
The treatment is jamming a big tube into their stomach and letting the gas out.

A farm kid can get in trouble by letting cows wander into a field of green hay like that, and watching the treatment of the cows, swollen and bellowing in pain could be a tramatic lesson.

seigfried007 · 04-22-2008, 05:01 PM

Numerous other plants are poisonous to cows as well and some aren't harmful to the cow but will make the milk taste horrible or be inedible. I'm wanting to say that goldenrod is on that list.

What you'll want to do is research breeds of cow. Wikipedia is a great place to start.
Dairy cattle - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Holsteins and Guernsey's are good to start out with, but some regions have a preference and different breeds have different amounts of milk and milkfat, produce milk good for different things (butter, cream, cheese, table milk), different life expectancies, periods of usefulness, temperaments, etc.

Cows do have to be bred (usually as soon as possible) to produce milk. Calves are stripped from the cow within 24hrs and usually sold to beef herders or kept as herd replacements (case of girl cows).

Sundara, I can only guess that's the reason organic milk's so expensive then.

Grass is more likely to be contaminated with dangerous weeds than bought cow feed. It doens't provide the cow with much nutrition either (think of how very little protein is in it--and how much undigestible bulk). Some things make the milk better quality.

Corn-fed, from what I've seen, seems to be more a beef cattle thing to build bulk. Dairy cows don't need bulk and fat cows actually tend to be less healthy and therefore less fertile which will actually get the cow killed.

Sam Winchester · 04-22-2008, 05:16 PM

warning, this may be a stupid question but I know nothing about cows*

If you have a cow, will she automatically make milk? I mean milk is for baby cows so if she doesn't have a baby around will there be milk anyway? I know there are big dairies and the cows there make milk but I thought maybe there was something they do to them hormonally to make them.

Milk is in the cow's teats. It's there, always, regardless.

In my book, there is a single cow on a small organic farm. Would she make milk and how often would she need to be milked? Also how often would she need to be fed, or do they just eat the grass? Twice a day? Also is there anything else that goes into their general care I should know about?

A cow is milked twice a day. Usually, never more than that. The cow will eat the grass for food, and in the winter they'll eat the silage which was the last cutting of grass. Sometimes the silage is piled into a stack, but mostly they're baled and stored for the winter time. A vet usually comes out to check the cow out, give her vaccination injections, and make sure she's healthy.

If anyone can help me out Id appreciate it, Ive been searching on google but a lot of stuff comes up about selling cows and livestock auctions and what not and not as much about how to actually care for the cow.

My book is not an in detail story about farming, its a story about people who meet while working on a farm, but I'd like the little details to be accurate as possible.

Thanks again!

Sam.

seigfried007 · 04-22-2008, 06:19 PM

Ask around 4-H.

Sam, cows only have udders full of milk after they've been impregnated, b irthed and for a day or two afterwards. You have to wait for the colostrum to get out beforte the milk comes in. Colustrum is a protein-rich fluid with antibodies to bolster an infant or calf's immune system as the immune system is pretty much non-existent after birth.

It's like women lactating. You can't squeeze my breasts and get anything out of them until the baby's popped out. Before that, it's nothing but colostrum.

Cows are usually bred 60-80 days after calving the first time (and usually bred around 14mos of age from what I'm given to understand). Milk production peaks at this time too, so it's in the farmer's best interest to mate them then. The cow dries up later in term, births, and the whole thing starts over again.

If calves weren't necessary, there wouldn't be hordes of newborn male animals up for auction every year at farmer's markets. The farmers don't need newborns--they need milk.

Also, for dairy cattle, milk replacement costs less than milk so farmers actually lose money allowing calves to nurse.

Sam Winchester · 04-22-2008, 06:46 PM

Of course you're right, Seigfried, and I should have known it. I posted without thinking. Dairy farming has never been big in my family, so you'll forgive me for the stupidity, slightly embarrassing as it may be.

However, some cows from strong milk lines (most commonly in JERSEY and HOLSTEIN breeds) can and do produce milk without being pregnant. This is called Spontaneous Lactation, Virgin Lactation or Maiden Milk. This also happens with Dairy Goats such as Nubian and LaMancha breeds.

Sam.

sundara · 04-22-2008, 10:25 PM

I just wanted to say that you have a lot of good information here about dairy cows, but there is a big difference in dairy cows as industry and a single cow that makes milk on an organic farm. As an organic farmer on a small farm I can explain that you may not really want two cows (the original cow and the calf when grown)- one is enough for many families. Personally I do want the calf to be healthy because I’m going to eat it later. You can get a lot of milk from one milking a day. As for food- cows are grazing animals, they weren’t made to eat corn- just grasses. On an organic farm the farmer would keep one field for hay, but the fields also have to be organic- this changes what the vet does too. I know you probably don’t need all of the information about organic farming so I won’t go into all of the little details. I just wish people knew how corn is bad for cows, causes them to have stomach problems, and weakens their immune system. A cow raised organically, allowed to have it’s mother’s milk, eats a balanced diet and isn’t part of a giant herd living on not enough land forced to eat corn mixed with it’s own excrement is much healthier and doesn’t need the vet like commercially raised cow.

papertears · 04-22-2008, 11:06 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by lin

You don't want to let cows eat green alfalfa. It blows up their stomach with gas and can kill them.
The treatment is jamming a big tube into their stomach and letting the gas out.

A farm kid can get in trouble by letting cows wander into a field of green hay like that, and watching the treatment of the cows, swollen and bellowing in pain could be a tramatic lesson.

ugh thanks for pointing this out. i grew up in dairy country. ick.

also, dry alfalfa that has been baled and had time to sit around ferments and becomes incredibly flammable. you don't want to smoke around that stuff. they're careful moving the bales on and off trucks.

i think that it actually keeps the cows a little content, that it is fermented, i mean. or, my uncles could have been giving me crap though about that.

Murloc · 04-22-2008, 11:30 PM

A "cow" is used for meat and milk, if i'm not mistaken.

papertears · 04-23-2008, 12:30 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Just Jim

The cow has to have a baby to get things started, so there has to be a bull (male cow) around.

Hi Jim!

I just wanted to point out something that your above statement made me think of. I grew up in dairy country, surrounded by cows, and I didn't know this until I was in college. *blush*

The term cow originally and I think semantically is still gender specific to female bovine. Someone feel free to correct me gently if I'm wrong.

Old MacDonald's farm didn't really help kids grasp this, as he always had a "cow" and never a "bull" let alone the only genderless term not attached to age I know of--"bovine". Most of the rest of his plethora of animals were not gender specific. So I blame the song.

I only point this out because someone made fun of me for pointing to a pasture of cows and bulls and using the term cows. They really let me have it because I was from the dairylands of West Texas/Eastern NM and they were from a big city.

I suppose it can be argued that cow, genderless, has become part of our vernacular.

Mike C · 04-23-2008, 04:30 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by lin

You don't want to let cows eat green alfalfa. It blows up their stomach with gas and can kill them.
The treatment is jamming a big tube into their stomach and letting the gas out.

There's a scene in the movie 'Far From the Madding Crowd' (from the Hardy novel) where this happens, with sheep, showing the tubes being inserted.

The only other thing I can contribute of interest about cows is also from Hardy. In 'Tess of the D'Urburvilles' milk becomes tainted (they can taste a "twang") when the cows graze on garlic plants.

The Backward OX · 04-23-2008, 07:27 AM

In this age of global warming, every one of you’ve missed the most important point of all. Cows (and bulls and steers and calves and heifers), along with all the other ruminants, fart out more methane gas than all the CO2 emitted by motor vehicles.

So the moral of this story is “become a vegetarian and save the planet.”

starseed · 04-23-2008, 10:27 PM

Wow you guys know a lot about cows!

I should explain more, in my story this cow doesn't have to be used on the farm. What happened is, she was an animal rescued from a farm abuse case(the animals were left there to starve and many of them died). The farm in my story is mostly a vegetable farm and the cow just lives there. The people on my farm are vegetarians and would only take milk from her if she made milk anyway (which it seems she wouldn't because she wouldn't have had a calf for a few years at least-before she was rescued)

So I'll go ahead and say there is no need to milk her.
I'm still debating if they should feed her special food or just let her eat grass. Maybe there is no need to mention that part in my story.