Dairy cattle are the milk factories

By Al Lowe
Contributor

All mammals, including humans, produce milk for their infant offspring. And all milk is quite similar. There are some differences - more or less fat, more or less calcium, and so on. Cow's milk and human milk are quite alot alike. Actually, not long ago, dietitians were calling cow's milk the perfect food for humans of all ages.
Cattle have been domesticated almost since man began to live in some kind of community. And in almost all areas of the world too.
Dairy cows are, of course, valued for their production of milk.
There are millions of dairy cows in the world, on thousands of farms. Lots of people used to, and many still do, keep a cow to provide them with milk, butter and cheese.
Dairy cows have a look of their own - they have a heavy looking back half. That big udder, and those prominent teats give them a sort of triangular look.
Those big udders and so on, are a result of very careful breeding for many, many years. The only figures I have are up to about 1975. But they clearly show that, although the number of cows has gone down, the amount of milk produced had stayed about the same. Much more milk from each cow - a really wonderful breeding achievement.
There are quite a lot of different breeds of dairy cattle. Personally, I have always had a soft spot for the Jerseys. They are smaller than some of the others, they are usually fawn or brown, and they have a nice friendly disposition. That doesn't apply to the bulls, though, who are often described as being vicious and hard to manage.
Jerseys originated on the island of Jersey in the English Channel.
This is a small island, only about 6 miles by 10, and no other cows are allowed on it. They came to America about 1850. They produce the highest butterfat content of any cattle, with an average of 5.4%, and some up to 6%. We always knew we were getting Jersey milk when there was lots of cream on the top of the bottle.
Those were really the olden days, weren't they?
But the best milk producers of all are the Holsteins, which came originally from Holland. They are quite large, with cows going up to over a ton in weight. The cows are usually easy to get along with, but the bulls are not. One book advises you to be very careful of these 'treacherous animals.'
Holsteins came to America about 200 years ago, but now they have spread to most parts of the developed world. They are probably the most popular of all the breeds. They cannot be any colour except black and white.
There are lots of other breeds, too - Brown Swiss, Ayrshires from Scotland, Guernseys from another Channel Island, Red Danish, and many more.
Cattle live to a great extent on pasture. Grass, clover, alfalfa do a lot for them. They will graze for 8 hours in a day. A lot of the rest of the time is spent in chewing the cud. A cow has four stomachs.
Pasture material is not fully digested right after it is swallowed. So it has to be regurgitated and chewed up some more before it can go into the intestine.
A cow is milked twice a day. In the wintertime, cattle are fed hay or silage. This is partially fermented plant material, often corn. In the old days, the boys used to put a jug at the bottom of the silo.
Some of that fermented material turned out to be pretty good home brew.
Fortunately, the sperm of bulls can be frozen and kept for many years. So a good bull can father hundreds and hundreds of offspring.
I guess that's not much fun, but it keeps the DNA going for years..
Here in Canada, we have some of the best dairy cattle in the world. That's a result of the intensive research we have done for many years.
So raise a glass of milk to your local dairy farmer. You owe him a lot!