A Tribute to the Creature that makes my Ice Cream Possible!

It's still June and that means it is still DAIRY MONTH!!! I am going to 'milk' this one as long as I can!!  So, this weeks post is to help educate you a little bit more about where those great dairy products are actually coming from--it was kind of a fun trip down memory lane for me and the very short time that I did Dairy Judging in FFA, but I did learn a lot from it that I hadn't known before!  So, here is some great info, the source is at the bottom of the article if you want to learn more when you are done!!

Dairy cows have been providing nourishment to humanity since ancient times. Evidence of humans using dairy cows has been found in Bronze Age Switzerland, and the ancient Egyptian nobility feasted on dairy products. Dairy cows, along with other cows and some other animals, are referred to as cattle, a word that comes from the old French word chattel, which means property.

Ancient History

Cows, along with sheep and goats, have been milked for thousands of years. The ancient Egyptians enjoyed dairy products, but they were so expensive that only royalty, priests and the extremely wealthy could afford them. The old testament of the Bible mentions man milking cows 44 times. It is believed ancient cows produced much less milk than modern cows, as little as one-tenth of what a modern cow can produce.

Breeds

Each of the six major modern breeds of dairy cow--

 Ayrshire,

 Brown Swiss,

Guernsey,

 Holstein,

Jersey

and Milking Shorthorn

--was developed separately. Guernseys were first raised by monks on the Isle of Guernsey. Jerseys, the smallest breed of dairy cow, were raised on the Isle of Jersey. Ayrshires were raised in Scotland, in the county of Ayr, and Holsteins were nurtured in the Netherlands. Milking Shorthorns were raised in northeastern England. Brown Swiss cows are the oldest breed of milking cow and have been in the Swiss Alps for thousands of years.

Cows in America

The first dairy cows were brought to the New World on Columbus' second voyage, and the first dairy cow was brought to Jamestown in 1611, per the Animal Improvement Programs Laboratory (AIPL). Nearly all early settler families had their own cow. In 1822 the first Ayrshire cows were imported to America, and 1852 marked the arrival of the first Holstein. Brown Swiss were first brought in the 1850s, but by the end of the century they were found all over, even reaching as far as the Pacific Ocean.

Dairy Cows Today

There are around 110,000 dairy farms in the United States, and they contain over 9.2 million cows. Cows spend nearly eight hours a day chewing their cud, which means they regurgitate and then chew the food again. Cows have one stomach, but four separate digestive compartments: the rumen, the reticulum, the omasum and the abomasum. The rumen can hold up to 50 gallons of undigested food, and the reticulum is where foreign objects (like bolts, pieces of fence or anything else that may accidentally fall into the cows food supply) get trapped to keep from injuring the cow.

The Dairy Industry

Milking machines were invented in 1894. Before milking machines, it took a farmer an hour to milk six cows. Now, one farmer can milk up to 100 cows an hour using modern machines. Each of the 9.2 million cows in America drinks a bathtub full of water and eats between forty and ninety pounds of food every day. Wisconsin dairy cows produce between five and seven gallons of milk a day, and each gallon of milk takes about 350 squirts of milk, according to the Wisconsin Milk Marketing Board.



Read more: Fun Dairy Cow Facts

eHow.com http://www.ehow.com/about_6382589_fun-dairy-cow.html#ixzz1O8qlXgVS

JUNE IS HERE!!

I am not even going to ask how it got here so fast or July will be hitting me upside the head before I know it...instead I am just going to try to deal with it and see if I can't get in the occasional post this summer!

So, here's what I have for you today: 

 JUNE IS NATIONAL DAIRY MONTH!!! 

 Ice cream, milk and cheese, OH MY!!  How would I live without dairy--yeah, I'd die.  Okay, so I might be a bit 'cheesey' (ha ha ha) today, but I running on low energy (maybe I need some protein?  Any idea where I could find a good source??)  DAIRY PRODUCTS!! 

Did you know that Milk is the Official beverage of Oklahoma??

● It takes more cows to produce milk annually for Pizza Hut cheese (about 170,000) than there are people living in Green Bay, Wisconsin.

● Cows have an acute sense of smell, and can smell something up to six miles away.

● Vanilla is America's favorite ice cream flavor.

● The average cow produces enough milk each day to fill six one-gallon jugs, about 55 pounds of milk.

● Each person in America eats an average of 46 slices of pizza a year.
● All 50 states in the United States have dairy farms.

● The natural yellow color of butter comes mainly from the bets-carotene found in the grass cows eat.

● The average cow drinks from 30 - 50 gallons of water each day - about a bathtub's worth.

● It takes 12 pounds of whole milk to make one gallon of ice cream.

● A cow can't vomit.
● It is possible to lead a cow upstairs but not downstairs, because a cow's knees can't bend properly to walk back down.
● The greatest amount of milk produced in one year was 59,298 lbs by a Holstein cow named Robthom Sue Paddy.
● Dairy cows can produce 125 lbs of saliva a day.
● A cow chews her cud (regurgitated, partially digested food) for up to 8 hours each day.

● The oldest cow ever recorded was a cow named "Big Bertha", she died 3 months short of her 49th birthday on New Year's Eve, 1993. She also holds the record for lifetime breeding as she produced 39 calves.
● A cow has to be a mom before she will produce milk.
● Contrary to popular belief, cows do not have 4 stomachs; they have 4 digestive compartments in one stomach:
● The rumen holds up to 50 gallons of partially digested food. This is where cud comes from. Good bacteria in the rumen helps digest the cow's food and provides protein for the cow.

● The reticulum is called the hardware stomach because if cows accidentally eat hardware (like a piece of fencing scrap), it will often lodge here causing no further damage.
● The omasum is sort of like a filter.
● The abomasum is like our stomach.

● Cows only have teeth on the bottom


Cool Facts from: http://www.greenmeadowfarms.com/cooldairyfacts.htm
 
 
After researching a little more about June being Dairy month, I found out a few other astounding facts:  June is also National Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Month, and Turkey Lovers Month--so, I might have to add a few posts of fun facts about those great Ag industries this month, too. But for now, let's celebrate Dairy Month by thanking our great American Dairy Producers for all they do to provide us with some of our favorite foods and treats!!!