50 Fun Facts About Dairy Farming

Elm Farm Ollie, a Guernsey cow, was milked in mid-journey in 1930 as the first cow to travel aboard what?

An airplane carried her from Bismarck, Missouri, to an air show in St. Louis, and her milk was dropped to the crowd below in containers tied to parachutes.

Pauline Wayne, the last cow to graze the White House lawn, supplied milk to which US president's family?

William Howard Taft's cow once went missing for two days on her way to a dairy show, when a rail crew's mistake sent her private car to the Chicago stock yards.

Dairy farmers often feed a cow a magnet to protect her from which oddly named condition?

Hardware disease strikes when swallowed nails or wire pierce the stomach wall, so a magnet given by mouth sits in the stomach and holds stray metal in place.

Milkmaids who caught cowpox seemed immune to which deadly disease, inspiring Edward Jenner's vaccine?

Smallpox immunity among dairy workers led Jenner to test matter from a cowpox sore on milkmaid Sarah Nelmes, and his word vaccination comes from vacca, Latin for cow.

What must a dairy cow do before her body will start producing any milk at all?

Give birth is the trigger: like every mammal, a cow makes milk to feed her young, so dairy farmers breed their cows regularly to keep it flowing.

A dairy cow's pregnancy lasts about nine months, almost exactly the same as that of which other species?

Humans and cows both carry their young for about nine months, so a farmer who wants a cow in the milking herd by age two must breed her at around 15 months.

Which gas do dairy cows release mostly by belching, as microbes in the gut break down their feed?

Methane is a by-product of stomach microbes called methanogens, and because it is a potent greenhouse gas some farms now adjust their feed to cut it.

Which famous inventor inaugurated the Rotolactor, a rotating platform that washed and milked 50 cows at once, in 1930?

Thomas Edison started the machine at the Walker-Gordon farm in Plainsboro, and the Rotolactor went on to be a featured attraction at the 1939 New York World's Fair.

Which country became the world's top milk producer after Operation Flood, a dairy programme launched in 1970?

India went from a milk-short nation to the biggest producer through village cooperatives, a drive led by Verghese Kurien and nicknamed the White Revolution.

In the Almabtrieb each autumn, elaborately decorated cows are led down from their summer pastures in which mountains?

The Alps see the herds dressed up only when the summer has passed without an accident, and villages greet the homecoming with music, feasts and dancing.

Which black-and-white breed, the choice of most dairy farmers worldwide, shaped the popular picture of a cow?

Holstein breeding leans on a few star bulls: one American sire named Elevation, born in 1965, fathered more than 70,000 offspring through artificial insemination.

Which dairy breed comes from a Channel Island that banned cattle imports for more than 200 years, until 2008?

Jersey shut out foreign cattle after French animals were being shipped through the island to dodge British import duty, hurting the price and name of its own breed.

Which US state hosts the World Dairy Expo, North America's biggest dairy cattle show, in its capital every October?

Wisconsin has staged the show in Madison since 1967, and seven recognised dairy breeds parade there before one cow is crowned Supreme Champion.

What is the name for a young female cow that has not yet had a first calf or joined the milking herd?

Heifer is the name she keeps until she calves, which most dairy farmers aim to see happen when she is about two years old.

What name is given to the partly digested feed a cow brings back up from her stomach to chew a second time?

Cud is pressed against the roof of the mouth with the tongue to squeeze out the liquid, and only then is the solid part chewed thoroughly.

Which chamber, the largest of four in a cow's stomach, can researchers reach through a porthole in the animal's side?

Rumen portholes, first documented in 1928, let vets transplant healthy gut contents from one cow to another as well as study digestion as it happens.

Which antibody-rich milk does a cow produce only in the first few days after her calf is born?

Colostrum is vital because a calf, unlike a baby, receives no antibodies before it is born, so one denied this first feed almost always dies of infection.

Which feed is made by packing chopped green crops tightly to keep out air, so that they ferment rather than rot?

Silage is in effect pickled fodder: the crop sours as it ferments, which preserves it for months, and maize, rye and sorghum are all commonly used.

Fonterra, a farmer-owned dairy giant formed in 2001 from two big co-operatives, is based in which country?

New Zealand farmers own Fonterra, which handles a large share of the world's dairy exports and also absorbed the national Dairy Board when it was formed.

Milk fever, which can leave a cow unable to stand soon after calving, is caused by low blood levels of which mineral?

Calcium is drained so fast by the first milk that the cow's body cannot keep up, and older cows are the ones struck most often.

Which udder infection do milkers look for by squirting the first streams of milk from each teat before milking?

Mastitis shows up as clots or discolouration in those first squirts, and milk from an affected cow has to be kept out of the supply.

Which company was first to sell the milk-boosting hormone rBST to American dairy farmers, under the brand name Posilac?

Monsanto began selling it in 1994, but the European Union and several other countries banned the hormone because of the added health risks to the cows.

Which dairy machine, first manufactured by Swedish engineer Gustaf de Laval, spins fresh milk to split it in moments?

Cream separator sales built the firm now called Alfa Laval; before it, farmers had to leave milk standing until it divided by itself and risk it turning sour.

Stephen Babcock's 1890 test, which he refused to patent, lets dairy farmers measure what in a sample of milk?

Butterfat could at last be measured cheaply, which exposed sellers who diluted their milk or skimmed it, and helped farmers pick their best cows to breed from.

The Murrah, a jet-black breed from Haryana kept mainly for its milk, belongs to which species?

Water buffalo of this breed have been shipped abroad to raise milk yields in Italy, Bulgaria and Egypt, and Murrahs change hands for high prices.

The Saanen, a white breed named after a Swiss valley and kept in over eighty countries, is which dairy animal?

Goat breeds do not come more productive in Switzerland than the Saanen, though its pale skin means it copes badly with strong sun.

Hanoverhill Starbuck, a champion bull whose semen sold in 45 countries, was recreated in 2000 by which technique?

Cloning gave breeders a genetic copy called Starbuck II, yet his semen could never be sold because no government approved sales from a cloned animal.

Which high-protein legume, known as lucerne in Britain and Australia, is grown chiefly as feed for dairy cows?

Alfalfa sends its roots down two to three metres, and sometimes far deeper, which lets it reach moisture that shallow-rooted crops cannot in a drought.

Which extinct wild ox, whose last confirmed survivor died in Poland in 1627, is the ancestor of domestic cattle?

Aurochs were first tamed about 10,500 years ago in the Near East, and genetic studies suggest European-type herds may descend from as few as 80 animals.

The red-and-white Ayrshire, a hardy dairy breed first known as the Dunlop, comes from which country?

Scotland's rugged south-west gave the Ayrshire its toughness, and its breed society sells it to farmers on long life and easy calving.

Which US state has led the nation in total milk production since 1993?

California dairies commonly feed their cows almond hulls and cotton seed, by-products of other farms that would otherwise go to waste.

Which hormone triggers the let-down reflex that squeezes milk out of the udder's glands when a calf suckles?

Oxytocin makes the band-like cells around the milk-producing sacs contract, pushing fresh milk into the ducts, and the same hormone drives contractions in labour.

What do dairy farmers call the rest of about two months that a cow is given from milking before calving again?

Dry period rest lets the udder renew its milk-making cells, and a break that is too short or too long cuts the yield in the next lactation.

The golden-yellow tinge of Guernsey milk comes from which pigment, which the body converts into vitamin A?

Carotene in its beta form gives the tint, and Guernsey milk is also unusually rich in both fat and protein.

A2 milk, sold as a distinct variety in supermarkets, mostly contains the A2 form of which milk protein?

Casein of the A1 and A2 types differs by just one of its 209 amino acids, and no widely accepted study has shown that the A1 form does any harm.

Which country controls its milk output with a national quota system known as supply management?

Canada sets a national milk quota each year and shares it out among the provinces, so that its farms produce roughly what the home market needs.

What does a dairy cattle breeder mean by describing a bull as naturally polled?

It has no horns, a trait far commoner in beef breeds than dairy ones, which is why gene editing is being developed to breed hornless dairy cattle.

Elsie the Cow, a cartoon mascot created in 1936, has long been the face of which American dairy company?

Borden gave Elsie a cartoon mate, Elmer the Bull, who went on to become the face of Elmer's glue.

A freemartin, a female calf that grows up infertile, shared the womb with what before it was born?

A male twin passes hormones and cells to his sister through their linked placentas, which changes how her reproductive organs develop.

Much of the research behind milking robots took place in which country, home of the manufacturer Lely?

Netherlands engineers helped create machines that let each cow choose when to be milked, which is why they are also called voluntary milking systems.

Fred Hatch built the first modern silo, a wooden upright tower, in 1873 in which US state?

Illinois was the place: Hatch put up his wooden tower at Spring Grove in McHenry County, and the first thing stored in it was grain.

Mooly Wooly, a White House cow who died suddenly in 1910, had reportedly eaten too much of which feed?

Oats were blamed for her death after a year and a half of supplying the First Family, and a pregnant four-year-old named Pauline Wayne was bought to replace her.

Which process forces milk through tiny holes at high pressure so that a fatty layer no longer rises to the top?

Homogenization breaks the fat into droplets too small to float up, which lets dairies sell milk that stays evenly mixed whatever its richness.

Cows have no upper front teeth, so they pinch off grass between their lower incisors and what?

A dental pad stands in for the missing upper incisors, and the tongue does the grasping, which helps a cow gather a large amount of grass quickly.

Which small Irish cattle breed, once treated as a type of Kerry, has cows that weigh only about 325 kg?

Dexter cattle seem to be named after a land agent on Valentia Island, and the small breed is kept for both milk and beef.

What do milking machines apply to a cow's teats through rubber-lined cups to draw the milk out?

A vacuum inside each rubber liner makes it collapse and relax in turn around the teat, squeezing milk out much as a suckling calf's mouth would.

Which refrigerated vessel on a dairy farm holds fresh milk at about 4 °C until a haulier collects it?

Bulk tank walls are packed with foam insulation, and an agitator keeps stirring the milk so that every litre cools evenly.

Which strong chemical does the Babcock test add to a milk sample before it is spun in a hand-cranked centrifuge?

Sulfuric acid dissolves the proteins and nearly everything else in the sample, leaving a single layer to float up into the bottle's neck, where a scale gives the reading.

Which fixture of old-style dairy barns held each cow in place in its stall while it was being milked?

A stanchion kept each cow in her place for twice-daily milking, and stanchion barns still survive on older and smaller farms.

Farm milk coolers are usually built with an inner and an outer shell made of which metal?

Stainless steel is used for both the inner and the outer shell, with polyurethane foam packed between them to keep the cold in.