We all know that Wilbur and Orville Wright were the first people to successfully fly a plane, but do you know who the first flying cow was.

In February 18, 1930, a cow named Elm Farm Ollie, who was nicknamed Nellie Jay, was the first cow to fly on a plane. Of all the cows dreaming of jumping over the moon, Nellie Jay was the one who came closest when she took flight that February morning.

The event was organized by the International Air Exposition which took place in St. Louis Missouri. Nellie Jay, a Guernsey cow, got to fly 72 miles from her hometown in Bismarck, Missouri to the booming metropolis St. Louis, Missouri.

The first cow milked on a plane

Because of her rigorous milking schedule being milked 3 times per day, Nellie Jay also became the first cow to be milked on a plane. Apparently this was also done so scientist could observe how Nellie Jay would be affected by being milked at high altitudes. It was stated that Nellie Jay, gave 24 quarts of milk on that arduous flight. The milk was then put in cartons and parachuted down to spectators below. Famous people to drink Nellie Jay’s milk included Charles Lindbergh.

The Sky Queen

Because of her accomplishment, Nellie Jay was appropriately renamed Sky Queen

So now you know the awesome story about Nellie Jay aka Sky Queen the first flying cow. You can now impress your friends with your knowledge of bovine aviation. The more you know.

Don’t forget to celebrate bovine aviation day on February 18.

In February, our dairy had the pleasure of getting a little newborn calf. She was born to proud parents (mom) Cali and (dad) Lou.

Baby gets a Name

She didn’t have a name, so a school class took up the challenge to find her a fitting name. The whole class got to vote for their favorite name. They came up with a bunch of very creative names including Ms.  Sprinkles, Twinkle Toes, Lollipop, Reese’s Pieces, Chocolate, Flower, Disco, Becky, Julie, Crystal, Batgirl, Catwoman, Traya, Princess Leia, Kayley, and Buttercup.

Eventually the votes were counted, and she was officially named Chocolate. As I understand it, she was named chocolate because she was born close to Valentine’s Day.

Chocolates first few weeks

**Chocolate in her playpen. She had her own individual pen to grow up for the first couple of weeks so she could develop her immune system and get healthy and strong**

**While in her playpen, Chocolate’s hobby was exploring. She absolutely loved playing and sleeping in the fluffy straw**

**You can read about how we took care of Chocolate and the other babies in a previous post I did about taking care of the baby cows here**

Chocolates getting older

**Chocolate is older now. She got to move to a new pen with all her friends. Her friends are all about the same age**

**Chocolate pretending to talk, I think she said “hey, what’s up”**

**Chocolate hanging out with her friends. Chocolate still loves relaxing in the straw**

**Chocolate is growing up, and doesn’t drink milk anymore. Her digestive system is changing! You can read more about the changes Chocolate is going through here**

Spring is here, and it is wonderful. I think most people would agree that spring is probably one of the best times of the year. Everything is green and blossoming.

Unfortunately, I realize many people are still dealing with cold weather this year, but spring is definitely here in California. We are busy harvesting our winter crop of oats and rye grass, and planting the corn. In fact, the corns already coming up.

I find spring to be one of the most inspirational times of the year. My hope is that it inspires you also. What do you like best about spring? Let me know what you think in the comments below.

Pictures of Spring

**The sky is the daily bread of the eyes – Ralph Waldo Emerson**

**If the sight of the blue skies fills you with joy, if a blade of grass springing up in the fields has power to move you, if the simple things in nature have a message you understand, Rejoice, for your soul is alive**

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**Truly I tell you, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you.”**

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**One of the most tragic things I know about human nature is that all of us tend to put off living. We are all dreaming of some magical rose garden over the horizon instead of enjoying the roses that are blooming outside our windows today – Dale Carnegie

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**He is richest who is content with the least, for content is the wealth of nature**

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**Don’t Judge each day by the harvest you reap, but by the seeds you plant – Robert Louis Stevenson**

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**You are never too old to set another goal or to dream a new dream – C.S. Lewis**

You can see more DairyMoos photos at my Flickr photostream here

As a consumer, there is nothing more confusing than the milk section at your local grocery store. When visiting the milk section, you can find a variety of milks with different fat percentages. So which milk do you choose? Do you opt for the reduced fat or skim milk, or do you go for whole milk.

I think many people today choose the milk with the least amount of fat – after all, the last thing most people want is to be fat. So they feel like they are making a healthy decision choosing the fat-free option. But have you really ever investigated whether this really is the healthiest option. Is fat really bad for you?

How fat became “bad”

In America today, fat has been demonized. Fat has been blamed for America’s obesity epidemic, and has been cited as the cause of the rising surge of heart disease. Our nation’s dietary guidelines have even suggested that people should moderate their fat consumption, and keep fat consumption to a minimum. So as a result the fat consumption in America has decreased. Unfortunately, even with people eliminating fat from their diets, coronary heart disease and obesity cases continue to rise. So is fat really the cause behind our current health crisis today?

Fat was never considered “bad” until recently in human history. In the 1950’s, heart disease and obesity were on the rise, so many researchers sought to determine the source behind the problem. Ancel Keys a nutritionist at the University of Minnesota published a 6 county study in 1953 and a 7 country study in 1970 that correlated fat consumption with an increased rate of heart disease and obesity. Unfortunately, Keys left out data that didn’t support his premise, and ignored data from other countries that would have suggested that increased fat consumption would lead to lower cases of obesity and heart disease. But Keys studies eventually became the foundation for current nutritional guidelines, and started the current fear of fat.

**Ancel Keys 6 country study compared to data that was available** Source

Nutrition trends

Reducing the intake of dietary fat has not helped reduce obesity though. In fact, there’s actual data now that shows that reducing calories from fat may actually have helped accelerated the rise in obesity. Over the past 20 years, dietary fat intake has declined, while carbohydrate and sugar consumption have risen considerably. You can read more about this in my previous post about the harmful effects of sugar.

**Reducing the intake of dietary has not seemed to affect the rise in obesity** Source

**Carbohydrate consumption in the U.S.** Source

**Sugar Consumption in the U.S. Source. Read more about the negative affects of sugar in a previous post I did**

**Soft drink consumption vs milk consumption** Source

**Butter consumption in the U.S.** Source

The problem with a low-fat diet

• The fat in a meal get replaced by carbs
• Low fat diet will make you hungry faster
• Fat keeps you full longer
• Fat signals satiety

Unfortunately, when people take the fat out of their diet, it gets replaced with something else. In most cases, fat is replaced with more carbohydrates. The problem with carbohydrates is that they metabolize quickly so you start snacking earlier after a meal. More snacking means you eat more calories. If you eat a balanced meal with some fat, you will stay full longer. Fat takes longer to break down so the energy won’t kick in till later.

Another downfall of a low-fat diet, is that fat is key in telling your brain when you’re full. The fat plays a key role in helping signal to your body that its full.

Cultures with high fat diets

Interestingly, there are cultures in the world that exist on high fat diets. These cultures sustain themselves on extremely high fat diets.

• The Massai in Kenya, and northern Tanzania exist on a diet of meat, milk, and blood from cattle – a diet of 66% saturated fat
• The Inuit Eskimos in the arctic eat a diet that consist mostly of whale meat and blubber – 75% saturated fat
• The Rendille tribe in Northeast Kenya sustain themselves on a diet of camel milk, meat, and blood – a diet of 63% saturated fat
• The Tokelau (native new Zealanders) eat a diet of fish and coconuts – a diet of 60% saturated fat

Even though these cultures consume high fat diets, they are relatively healthy with few cases of heart disease and obesity.

The human diet throughout history

If you think it though, humans have been eating high fat diets (meat and dairy) far longer than they have been eating high carbohydrate diets (cereal grains). Most people groups started as hunter gatherers which would mean that a large portion of the diet would be meat and dairy products. It wasn’t until societies settled down and started farming grains, that societies began to eat more grains. It probably wasn’t until the last 250 years that people began eating large amounts of carbohydrates in their diet with the rise of better agriculture systems and widespread food processing and distribution.

In fact, researchers have discovered that people have been drinking milk for thousands of years through the discovery of milk residues in ancient pottery. These same researchers also note that cave paintings have also been found that suggest that animal farming predates plant cultivation, which means people were drinking milk far longer than they were eating grains. And I’m sure these people where drinking whole milk not reduced, or skim.

**The human diet throughout history was very different than today** Source

Your body needs fat

Fat is actually very important, and your body needs fat to function. Fat plays an integral role in the health and well being of your body. Without fat in your diet, you could not live.

Your brain is actually about 2/3 fat and needs fat to function. According to the Franklin Institute, the membranes of neurons (the specialized brain cells that communicate with each other) are made up of a double layer of fatty acid molecules. When you digest fat, it’s broken down into various fatty acids which your brain uses to assemble the special types of fat and incorporate them into the cell membranes. Without fat in your diet, your brain would not be able to function properly.

But it’s not just your brain that needs fat. The cells in your body need fat to function properly. Your heart prefers to use fat as energy to function. Fat helps protect your liver from the affects of alcohol and other toxins. Fats are also fundamental in helping your immune system, specifically in priming the white blood cells to destroy invading pathogens and disease. Fat also helps your body in regulating proper hormone production in your body. So without fat it’s not just your brain that wouldn’t function; your whole body wouldn’t be able to function.

Fat helps with nutrient absorption

Today there is a growing amount of research that is discovering that fat is actually good for you in ways you wouldn’t think of. Fat is now being discovered to play a much larger role in human wellness than previously thought. In fact, the fat in milk is being shown to play an interesting role in the absorption of nutrient.

Research has proven that eating some fat with your meal helps your body absorb the nutrient in your food. In order to get the most nutrition out of your meals, it’s actually good to have some fat in your meal. When you eat fat soluble vitamins, they dissolve in the fat, and then are able to move across the cell walls in the small intestine and enter the body’s circulation. The fat is basically a vehicle to transport the fat-soluble vitamins through the small intestine, into the bloodstream, and to your liver where they stored. Without fat in your diet, your body would not be able to get the proper amount of these nutrients.

Eating some fat with your meal helps your body absorb the nutrient in your food

In order for your body to absorb calcium, you need to have the proper amount of vitamin D. Without the proper amount of vitamin D, your body cannot absorb calcium. This leads to your body getting the calcium it needs from its stores in the skeleton; which of course weakens your body’s bones. But because milk naturally has fat, the fat helps your body absorb vitamin D, which in turn helps your body absorb the calcium in milk. It’s quite interesting to see how milk is specially designed to help your body absorb the nutrients it contains.

Beneficial fatty acids in milk

All fat is not created equal. Fat and oils are composed of fat molecules known as fatty acids. There are a variety of fatty acids in milk that are being shown to have positive effects on the human body. Current research is only now beginning to study the effects of certain fatty acids on human health. The following are a few of the fatty acids in milk and their positive effects:

Lauric Acid – has many positive effects, and has been shown to have strong antiviral properties. It has been shown to disrupt the lipid membranes in organisms like fungus, bacteria, and viruses and consequently destroying them. Lauric acid also been shown to improve the condition of your skin and hair, and increase your metabolism.

Conjugated Linoleic Acid (CLA) – has been shown to be linked to long term weight management and health. Research has shown that CLA has been effective in combating against cancer, cardiovascular disease, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and osteoporosis. CLA has even been shown to be beneficial in lowering body fat.

Oleic Acid – is a beneficial fatty acid that helps your cholesterol by raising the good cholesterol (HDL) while at the same time lowering the bad cholesterol (LDL).

Butyric Acid – has been shown to be anti-inflammatory, and protect against mental illness, increase the body’s metabolism, reduce the negative effects of type-1 diabetes.

The milk fat globule membrane

Researchers are beginning to study a special structure in milk that is now being shown to have many beneficial components. The fat in milk is encased in droplets that are encased in a structure called the milk fat globule membrane, MFGM. It’s a double layered membrane that keeps the milk fat separate, and stable in milk. This membrane is also comprised of many different bioactive compounds.

**Milk Fat Globule Membrane is comprised of many different bioactive compounds**

The different bioactive compounds on the MFGM are still being researched, but there are a variety of beneficial compounds such as lactoferrin, igG, sialic acid, phospholipids, and gangliosides. Many of these compounds are the key in antiviral and antimicrobial mechanisms that combat infections and bacteria in the gut. Even the simple membrane encasing the milk-fat is being shown to have beneficial properties.

**Current research is showing that the MFGM helps protect against colon cancer**

Milk fat is only beginning to be researched

Milk fat may have many other positive benefits, and effects on the human body. Because fat was typically looked at as being a negative component of milk and dairy products, researchers spent a lot of time researching ways to eliminate or reduce the milk fat in various dairy products. Luckily though, this is a changing trend, and researchers are beginning to study milk fats purpose in milk. The research is promising, and there will definitely be a lot of interesting information in the future.

**A recent study showed milk fat may preserve digestive track integrity**

The bottom line

With the growing amount of obesity and heart disease in the United States today, it is extremely important that people eat healthy. People need to eat a well balanced diet. Eating fat in your diet doesn’t imply that you will become fat. In fact, the reverse may be true as proven by many cultures throughout history.

If you think about it, the amount of fat in milk is so small; milk should be labeled 96% fat-free. The fat in milk is being proven to have many beneficial properties, and positive effects on the human body. So is the fat-free milk really the healthiest option. There is a nature intended reason why there is fat in milk.

Milk is a perfect balance of nutrients that is specially designed for the best transfer of nutrients. After all, the whole purpose of milk is to transfer nutrients from the mother to their offspring. Nature designed milk with this in mind. The interesting part is that science is only now confirming what civilizations have known for thousands of years.

I hope this posting gives you something to consider for the next time your purchasing milk. If you agree or disagree, let me know in the comments below.

Every year, the annual World Ag Expo is held in Tulare, California. The event is one of the largest agricultural shows in the world, and brings in about 100,000 people in the 3 days its open. Every year, our family attends the show to look for new products that can help benefit our farm.

There are many vendors at the show displaying their products, and introducing new innovations and technology that we can use at the farm. The adventure is in finding the new products that will help bring about improvements for our farm. The goal of course being to increase our cost savings, discover new ways to keep our cows comfortable, and learn about new practices that can make our farm more sustainable.

There are also a variety of seminars that you can attend, to increase your knowledge of agricultural issues, and expand your understanding of modern production methods.

Because we live in California, it is really convenient for us to attend the show. Even so, there are people that attend from all over the world. It is truly an international event.

Cool Innovations

Usually, we find some really cool innovations. For example, one year we found robots that will milk your cows. This year, one of the cool new innovations was a product that tracks the health and reproductive status of dairy cows. The system continually monitors the cow’s temperature, and will alert you if the cow’s temperature is abnormal. It helps you find sick cows faster so you can then take steps to help make the cow healthy again. It is really interesting that technology is helping to improve the lives of people, but people forget that technology is actually helping to improve the lives of cows also! It will be interesting to see what new innovations will be there next year.

**Stationary feed mixer**

**Plastic cows so dairymen remember what cows look like**

**Tractor just for chicks**

**Plenty of farm equipment at the show**

Questions/ comments

Have you attended the World Ag Expo, or something similar? What was the coolest thing you seen?

On the dairy farm, our goal is to raise happy and healthy heifers. It’s important because the heifers are the future of the dairy. If they are not treated well, it will impact their growth, and affect the future sustainability of the business.

Dairies have learned that treating calves well is essential. It’s important that heifers get the right care and feed ration so they can grow into their full genetic potential. Research has actually shown that if you don’t feed your heifers properly when they are young, it can have a lasting impact on how much milk they will produce when they are older.

Financial incentives aside, any good steward knows that giving animal’s the best care possible should always be the main priority of any operation!

Taking Care of the Calves

Calf care on the dairy is really important. I actually wrote about how we take care of the babies in a previous posting. The babies are kept in their play pens (calf hutches) for a few weeks. When they are ready to transition to a forage diet, we move them into group pens. They then become part of the herd!

Calf anatomy 101

Cows have a unique digestive system. When they are young calves the digestive system is different than what it is when they are older.

Cows have 1 stomach, with 4 compartments: the rumen, reticulum, omasum, and the abomasum. The 2 important compartments are the abomasum and the rumen. The abomasum is very similar to the stomach that we have. The rumen on the other hand is how cows can eat grasses, and forages. The rumen is full of billions of microorganisms that breakdown the grasses into energy. The microorganisms digest the plant fiber, and produce volatile fatty acids, and protein to supply energy for the cows.

However when the baby calves are born, their rumen is not developed. The calves actually have a feature called the esophageal groove that allows the milk to bypass the rumen and go directly to the abomasum (human-like stomach).

A Dietary Transition

Over time though, the esophageal groove closes, and the rumen develops with the growth of the microorganisms. When the esophageal groove closes, the heifers aren’t great at digesting milk anymore. So along with the physiological change, the calves also become ready for a dietary change.

Feeding the heifers grain when they are young really helps accelerate the development of the rumen. So if you don’t feed the heifers grain, they won’t grow well as their rumen will take longer to develop.

When the rumen is developed, the calves can then transition from a diet of milk and grain to a diet of forages.

**Over time calves transition from a diet of milk to a diet of forages like Alfalfa**

Group Pens

When the calves are a few weeks old, they move to group pens. At this age the heifer should have strong immune systems, and be full of health and vitality. If the calf has grown well and been given grain, the calves rumen should be developed to the point where, it can begin to eat forages.

The calves are weaned from milk, and they get to eat forages like alfalfa hay. The calves aren’t babies anymore, but growing heifers. So they don’t get any more milk, but they have access to a lot of new feeds.

I think the heifers really enjoy being together. They become part of the herd, and make a lot of new friends.

**The calves enjoying some alfalfa hay**

**Two bestie’s eating together**

**Enjoying their forage ration**

**Some of the heifers are more curious than others**

**A Jersey heifer (the brown one) and her gang**

See more pictures from our farm on my Flickr

Read about Calf care at the dairy

Thoughts

Do you think the heifers look happy and healthy? Let me know what you think in the comments below

Recently I came across a story that I just had to share. I never thought much about it, but most presidents have had pets, and some had more interesting pets than others.

Pauline Wayne

Perhaps one of the most famous presidential pets in U.S. history was a dairy cow. Until the 1850′s, most families in the United States owned their own cow, and that included the presidential family. A Holstein dairy cow names Pauline Wayne was an official presidential pet to William Howard Taft, the 27th president of the United States.

From 1910 to 1913, Miss Wayne grazed freely on the White House lawn, and provided milk for the First Family. Unfortunately she was the last presidential cow to ever live at the White House, and graze on the White House lawn.

Part of the Family

Pauline was not the first presidential cow though. She replaced a lesser-known cow named “Mooley Wooly” who produced milk for the First Family for a year and a half. According to the story, Taft and his wife Helen had growing children and Mooly Wooly couldn’t produce enough milk for the family. So a Wisconsin Senator bought Pauline Wayne for Mrs. Taft.

Pauline was considered a family pet to the Taft’s as much as she was livestock. Unfortunately the origins of her name are unknown, but I suspect there must have been an interesting story behind the name.

More Unusual Presidential Pets

Most presidents had more traditional pets like dogs, cats, and horses, but some had some had more exotic and unusual pets. The following are some of the more interesting presidential pets:

· George Washington – a Parrot

· Thomas Jefferson – 2 bear cubs

· John Quincy Adams – Alligator, Silkworms

· Andrew Jackson – fighting roosters

· Martin Van Buren – 2 tiger cubs

· Abraham Lincoln – Turkey named Jack, Goats named nanny and nanko

· Benjamin Harrison – Opossums named Mr. Reciprocity and Mr. Protection

· Theodore Roosevelt – Badger named Josiah

· Calvin Coolidge – Raccoons named Rebecca and Horace, Bobcat named smoky, a black bear, a wallaby, lion cubs named Tax Reduction and Budget Bureau, a pygmy hippo named Billy, and a Duiker (small antelope)

· Herbert Hoover – 2 crocodiles

Let me know

Did I forget any? Let me know in the comments below!

Most people don’t realize how easy it is to make your own homemade butter, but It’s really quite simple.

The Science behind Butter Making

Butter is made by agitating milk. When milk is agitated for a long period of time, the milk fat globule membranes that encase the fats are broken. This causes the fats to clump together, and separate from the buttermilk. So your goal when making butter, is to break the membrane that encases the fat and separate the fat from the buttermilk.

Back in the good ol days, you had to use a butter churn to do this. But a butter churn requires a lot of work to manually agitate the cream, and who wants to do that. Instead you can just use a blender. It’s much easier, and works quite well.

What you need:

- A blender

- Cream

- Cup of Ice water

- Salt (optional)

One Step for Making Butter

Pour the cream in the blender, and turn it on. The blender will whip the cream in to whipping cream. When it turns to whipping cream keep blending. After awhile, the cream will break and turn into butter. The whole process takes about 5-10 minutes. You will know when the cream turns to butter because the butter clumps up, and separates from the liquid. After the cream turns to butter, you can drain the buttermilk, and viola you made your own butter.

Optional Step- Keep you Butter Fresh

To keep you butter fresh longer, you can wash it with ice water. After draining the buttermilk, pour some ice water in the blender, and blend a few more minutes. This washes the butter, and makes it last longer.

Salted vs. Unsalted

You can also add salt to the cream if you want salted butter. If you don’t add salt, your butter will be unsalted. I made mine without salt, and it was really good.

If you found this useful, please let me know in the comments below

It’s hard to believe that 2012 is already over. Time just seems to be flying by. It’s hard to believe that I’ve been blogging for 3 years already. It was a very eventful year though, and I would definitely say I learned a lot about blogging. I thought I would take some time to reflect what went on the past year, and share the top 5 posts of the year.

Events of 2012

To start the year off, my blog was hacked. It was definitely not a great way to start the year, and not very encouraging . The hacker cut off the traffic to my site, and it became a virtual ghost town. Luckily though, I figured out how to fix it , and Google helped me bring people back. It was a learning experience though, and I learned a lot about managing a website. Sometimes bad things happen, but they can help make you stronger. This was definitely the case for my blog. Even though it was hacked, it really just made this site better, and improved my skills for managing a website.

Another notable event was the 2012 drought in the U.S. The drought was so widespread that it was the worst drought since 1954. It affected much of the corn crop in the U.S. and caused feed prices to soar. This made it difficult for dairy farmers. Feeding the cows got more expensive, and caused many dairies to go out of business. It’s been a rough year for the dairy industry, but we are hoping things get better. Let’s hope that 2013 is a good year.

Then later this year, I had a visit from Casey the cow. Casey was sent to me by a school class, and they were learning about dairy. Casey got a tour of our farm, and asked me some very important questions about cows. It was pretty fun to be able to do this for them.

A Global Reach

Interestingly, I discovered that Dairy Moos is being read by people all over the world. I found a map with were viewers were located, and you can see that there are readers in nearly every country. Hopefully this trend will continue, and more people will be reached in 2013.

The top 15 countries reading Dairy Moos were: the United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Australia, India, Netherlands, Ireland, New Zealand, Philippines, Thailand, Pakistan, Croatia, Germany, Turkey, and Mexico.

Top 5 posts of 2012

1- Interesting Facts About California Agriculture

The top post on my blog this year, was Interesting facts about California Agriculture. A lot of people don’t realize that California is the leading state for agriculture in the U.S., and is the 5th largest supplier in the world for food and agricultural products. Interestingly, California only has 4% of the farms in the U.S., but it is the largest producer of food. There a lot of interesting facts about California agriculture so definitely check it out if you haven’t already. Read More..

**California is sometimes called the breadbasket of the world thanks to the amount of food that’s grown there**

2- Milk is so Expensive… Really?

This was the second most popular posts on Dairy Moos. Some people like to say that the reason they don’t drink a lot of milk is because it’s so expensive. So this post puts things into a different perspective. Milk has so many essential nutrients that it is actually a bargain buy. Some other beverages are only empty calories. To get a similar amount of nutrients that are in milk, you would need to spend much more on other foods to get similar amounts of nutrition. So if you think about it, milk would be a much better buy. Read More..

**Milk is a bargain bin of nutrients**

3- Antibiotics in Milk?

This has been a top post for the past 3 years. Many people are concerned that milk has antibiotics so this might be a reason for the popularity of this post. Let this post reassure you that milk is a safe beverage with no antibiotics. Read More..

**Milk is a safe, wholesome beverage**

4- How many Babies do Cows Have?

Another significant event of 2012 was a set of quadruplet heifers that were born on a farm near ours. The odds of this happening, and being all the same sex is nearly impossible. Our farm also had triplet heifers born, and another farm near ours had triplet heifers as well. Triplet heifers are also a pretty rare event. You can read all about the odds in this post. Read More..

**A picture of the triplet heifers that were born on our dairy this year. Even though it’s a rare event, this is the second time its happened!**

5- How the Baby Calves are Treated at the Dairy Farm

Taking care of the baby calves is one of the most important jobs at the dairy. This is the next generation of cows, and how they are treated will affect their future and ours. It’s really in our best interest to treat these babies like royalty, so that’s what we do. Read More..

**Feeding the babies is the most important job**

Happy New Year 2013

Thanks for reading. I hope that you have a great new year, and hope that 2013 will be just as amazing as 2012!

Read the top Dairy Moos posts of 2011

Read the top Dairy Moos posts of 2010

1. Cows are social animals, and they naturally form large herds. And like people, they will make friends and bond to some herd members, while avoiding others
2. Cows are red-green colorblind. In a bullfight, its the waving of the cape that attracts the bull not the red color
3. A cow’s heart beats between 60 and 70 beats per minute
4. Cows can hear lower and higher frequencies better than humans.
5. An average dairy cow weighs about 1,200 pounds.
6. A cows normal body temperature is 101.5°F.
7. The average cow chews at least 50 times per minute.
8. The typical cow stands up and sits down about 14 times a day.
9. An average cow has more than 40,000 jaw movements in a day.
10. Cows actually do not bite grass; instead they curl their tongue around it.
11. Cows have almost total 360-degree panoramic vision.
12. Cows have a single stomach, but four different digestive compartments.
13. Cows are pregnant for 9 months just like people
14. A dairy cow can produce 125 lbs. of saliva a day
15. Cows spend 8 hours per day eating, 8 hours chewing her cud (regurgitated, partially digested food), and 8 hours sleeping
16. You can lead a cow upstairs, but not downstairs. Cows knees can’t bend properly to walk downstairs.
17. Cows can’t vomit
18. The average cow drinks 30 to 50 gallons of water each day
19. The average cow produces 70 lbs. of milk. That’s 8 gallons per day!
20. Cows only have teeth on the bottom
21. Cows have a great sense of smell. They can smell something up to 6 miles away
22. Dairy cows are economic job creating machines! 1 dairy cow creates 4 full time jobs in the local community
23. A Holstein’s spots are like a fingerprint. No two cows have exactly the same pattern of black and white spots. They are all different

Let me Know