Production Cycle of a Dairy Cow

You might think that a milk carton that reads, “no artificial hormones added” is hormone-free. But all milk whether raw or pasteurized, naturally contains hormones. Even in Canada, where growth hormones to stimulate milk production in dairy cows are not permitted, natural hormones are still present in milk. The reason, suggests Ganmaa Davaasambuu, a physician and a working scientist for Harvard School of Public Health, cows are milked almost 300 days per year. And for much of that time they’re pregnant. The farther along a cow is, the more hormones appear in her milk.

In 1990, there were over 9300 dairy farms in Ontario housing almost 450,000 cows. The farm-gate value of milk produced exceeded 1.3 billion dollars. At the retail level, dairy product sales in Ontario exceeded 4 billion dollars. The number of dairy herds in Ontario on a milk-testing program had declined from about 7100 in 1985 to 6000 in 1990. Moreover, a continued decrease was projected.

As you can see the dairy cow should be in milk for around 305 days a year and have a drying off period of around 60 days. After calving the cow should be back in calf after 85 days, this is to keep the ratio of 1 calf/ cow/ year. This ratio will get the highest yield out of the cow and keep a good profit margin for the farmer.

A cow will produce an average of nearly 7 gallons of milk each day. That’s more than 2,500 gallons each year.

Analyze the “Happy Cows” campaign that was developed for the California Milk Advisory Board to promote Real California Cheese from an integrated marketing communications perspective. Why do you think the campaign has been so successful?

Gestation for females is 285 days, although since they live in a herd, many cows wait for others to give birth so it will be at the same time. The calves can stand and walk ten minutes after birth.

Abd El-Shaffy and G. A. Abd El-Rahman.  El-Nor, Khalif and El-Shaffy are from the Dairy Science Department, National Research Centre, Dokki, Cairo, Egypt.  Khattab and El-Sayed are from the Animal Production Department Faculty of Agriculture, Ain Shams University, Shoubra Al-Kheimah, Cairo, Egypt.  The last author El-Rahman is from the Animal Production Department, Faculty of Agriculture, Zagazig University.  All that was just listed was the source of authority that these authors have in their country.  These authors or professors are well-prepared to write about this topic because they talk about the whole experiment.  They inform the reader about what was done in the experiment and what came out of the experiment.  This article came from Revista Veterinaria.  The intended readers are possibly Buffalo breeders to see what is the best way to feed the calf and what milk is the most nutritious.  Also people that are interested in this topic can read this article as well.  There

Yearling fed cattle spent 116 days on feed for both the CON and NOT groups. Cattle were weighed on day zero and on day 116 to calculate the information. In the CON group, cattle had an ADG of 3.76 lb/day. This was a higher ADG than the NOT group, who averaged a substantially lower rate of gain at 2.9 lb/day. In the end, this made a difference of 103 pounds in the finished body weight of cattle since the CON group finished at an average weight of 1260 pounds and the NOT group finished at a weight of 1157 pounds. To get the same body weight in the NOT group as the CON group, one would have to feed an extra 35.5 days.

The Fritz Ranch runs an organic cow-calf operation that runs on an 800-acre of their land (Harper et al, 2). The operation produces, slaughters, packages and markets a final beef product during an 18-month cycle (Harper et al, 1). The cows are usually bred during late winter through early spring, or November

1. What is the appropriate cow size for the herd using the 50% weaning rule?

Growth hormones (GH) are also commonly used today in CAFOs. Cows normally give birth and lactate for about 9 months before milk secretion stops. GH elongate this cycle time and cause reproductive problems in the cows (Forbes, 68). GH increase milk production by 15%, cause animals to grow to maturity

Every year, nearly half a million or more calves are born that are unwanted and transported long distances to be turned into veal. Dairy cows give birth once a year in order to produce milk. Female calves join the dairy herd because

The section covers background information, core products/services, mission and strategic objective, SWOT (Strength, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Weaknesses) analysis and targeting strategy of the company.

Calves are dependent on their mother’s milk for 5 months after birth (Fay 1982). However, some calves eat some invertebrates by the time they are 6 months old. Calves can consume benthic material after their first year but will continue to consume their mother’s milk until they are two (Fay 1982). If the adult female does not have a new offspring, the calf can continue to suckle milk after two years (Fay 1982). Females are facing difficulty nourishing themselves and caring for their young. If the adults cannot adapt to free ice and carrying their young, the population will decline (Cooper et al. 2006).

Which brings us to the quality of the milk, lots of commercial farms put steroids in there cows to produce more milk than a regular cow could produce, prolactin, steroids including estrogens, progesterone, corticoids, and androgens, these are just some of the steroids commercial farmers inject in there cows. Sometimes when a cow produces too much milk they could develop mastitis in cows, mastitis is an infection or inflammation in the udders which makes them produce chunky milk it can be potentially fatal in the mammary gland and very expensive for the dairy commercial/industrial farms says HDB dairy, if the udders of a dairy cow doesn 't work they often get shot and get butchered for meat just because the farm was pushing them to hard