I Love Cows!

My favorite animal is a cow. A cow provides some of my favorite foods- milk, cheese (mac ‘n cheese especially!), burgers and steaks! I decided to look up some fun cow facts this morning to share with you. Enjoy!

~In a year’s time a dairy cow produces 1,500 gallons or 6,000 quarts of milk. A Jersey cow will give as much as 3 to 4 gallons or around 16 quarts of milk each day.

~Dairy cows provide us with milk and milk by-products like cheese, butter, and ice cream. In addition, milk is also used to manufacture glue, paint, and plastics.

~Straight from the cow, the temperature of cow’s milk is about 97 degrees Fahrenheit.

~The average U.S. dairy cow produces 22.5 quarts of milk each day. That’s about 16,000 glasses of milk per year – enough for about 40 people. One cow can give 200,000 glasses of milk in a lifetime.

~It takes approximately 1.4 gallons of milk to make 1 gallon of ice cream.

~Cheese was first made over 4,000 years ago in Asia.

~Cows are ruminants or cud-chewing animals eating hay, corn, soybeans, grass, wheat, and ensilage. Each cow eats 20 to 25 pounds of grain, 40 to 60 pounds of ensilage, 30 pounds of hay and drinks about 15 to 25 gallons of water a day.

~A typical, full grown Holstein cow weighs about 1,400 pounds and produces 60 pounds of milk per day.

~One day's production is 2.6 pounds of butter or 7 gallons of milk or 6 pounds of cheese.

~A dairy cow consumes 35 gallons of water, 20 pounds of grain and concentrated feed and 35 pounds of hay or silage (a mixture of corn and grass) in just one day.

My bottle calf, Marvin waiting to get fed. 

~It usually takes about 20 minutes for a cow to be milked. On average a cow is milked 2 to 3 times a day.

~Hamburger meat from a single steer will make about 720 quarter pound hamburger patties. That's enough for a family of 4 to enjoy hamburgers each day for nearly 6 months.

~Most popular cut of beef is ground beef.

~Beef is the #3 source of iron behind fortified cereal and grains.

~The U.S. supplies 25% of the world's beef with 10% of the world's cattle. 

What is your favorite food that comes from a cow? Comment below!