Student Pack
On the Farm
Our farmers’ cows
You can’t have dairy products without cows! These lovely, friendly animals are the foundation of our industry and dairy farmers look after them with great care.
This map shows areas in Australia where dairy cattle can be found. Because dairy farming requires regular rainfall (to grow grass and for the cows to drink) dairy farms are restricted to a small area of the whole continent.
Click here to download a PDF describing seven main types of dairy cattle in Australia - each with their own special features. There are other breeds of cows that do produce milk, however they are not as common in Australian herds.
Facts about dairy cattle
- A typical cow provides about 100 glasses of milk a day
- Cows have 32 teeth but they don’t have any top teeth
- Cows use their long tongues to twist the grass up from the ground
- Cows have four stomachs
- What a cow eats affects how much milk she gives
- A cow’s intestines can be as long as 50 metres
- Cows are milked at least twice a day
- Cows are not milked for about two months before the birth of a calf
- Cows come into the milking shed in their own set order (routine) with their friends!
- Cows eat about 40 kg of nutritious food a day, 40 kg of food equals: 206 baked potatoes or 1440 slices of bread
- The milk from the cow is at 35°C just after milking and is chilled down to 4°C as soon as possible
- There are 207 bones in a cow’s body
- A cow weighs between 550 and 700 kg
- Cows: the females who give birth to calves and produce milk
- Bulls: the fathers of the dairy herd, only a few are needed on a dairy farm (Most dairy farms don't have bulls - they use artifical insemination)
- Heifers: young female cattle, who are the ‘teenagers’ of the herd and haven't had a calf yet
- Calves: baby cattle. Females grow into heifers and then milking cows; male calves become bulls
All cows are ruminants. This means that they have four stomachs and each stomach has a different function. The digestive process is also complicated by the fact that cows chew their cud (food that the cow returns from the stomach to chew again). Here’s how this works:
Breeding
A cow starts to produce milk once her first calf is born - after nine months of gestation. Immediately after the birth, cows (like humans) produce a milk called colostrum, which is a special type of milk packed with nutrients and antibodies to help the calf to develop and to build up its immune system against unhealthy bacteria and other diseases.
After three to four days of drinking colostrum, the calf is weaned off its mother. It is then fed milk from a bucket or bottle and gradually introduced to solid feed like hay.
At this time the composition of the mother cow’s milk changes to its normal white colour and taste (and is then used for human consumption).
A cow may produce milk for as long as she is milked.
The usual practice is that a cow becomes pregnant again about 100 days after her calf is born. Once she’s pregnant she continues to give milk for about seven months. The farmer stops milking her two months prior to the birth so she can give all her energy to producing her new calf and have a rest.
