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Did you know?
- Cows or cattle are mammals.
- The male cow, which is primarily used for farm work, breeding, hides and its meat, is called a bull.
- A female cow is only capable of giving milk after having given birth to a calf.
- A young female cow is called a heifer. A heifer becomes a cow when she gives birth to a calf. For breeding purposes this usually happens around age two.
- A calf is a baby cow.
- Cows provide us with milk, meat and leather.
- They are kept on family owned farms as well as commercially operated farms.
- Dairy cows are usually milked no more than twice a day, which allows them a lot of time to graze. The more grass a cow eats, the better the milk will taste. The type of food a cow eats affects the way the milk tastes and consequently also the way dairy products taste, such as cheese or milk chocolate.
- Even though some cows are allowed to graze, most of them are fed a mix of hay and silage. Silage contains hay, corn, barley, field grasses, cotton seed, as well as grocery/bakery byproducts.
- Cows also drink 30 to 40 gallons of water a day (=114 to 151 liters).
- A cow is milked roughly 300 to 350 times a year, but at commercial dairy operations they are milked year round.
- Dairy cows are butchered for their meat when they no longer produce milk or at death.
- A cow produces about 90 glasses of milk per day.
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