Facts About Cows You'll Wish You Never Knew
Unless we live on a farm, we really don't know too many facts about cows, certainly not as many as we might think. Cows are really quite amazing animals. The always seem to be grazing, lying down, or following one another into the barn. It's probably fair to say that they lead a fairly structured, scheduled life. It's seldom you'll see a cow that we would, in the human world, call a free spirit, though such cows probably exist.
One of the first facts about cows I learned was one my mother told me. "When cows lie down, it means it's going to rain". She was right, but we lived in Seattle, which might have had something to do with it. Presumably cows near Phoenix, Arizona lie down at least once every day, and it certainly doesn't rain every day in Phoenix. Actually, cows lay down and average of about a dozen times a day. Something else must account for all that rain in Seattle.
The Cow And The Horse - Cows can, and often do, sleep while standing up. Just like horses, and some people I know. Not only can they sleep standing up like a horse, but they can outrun a horse, under certain conditions that is. Because of their cloven hooves, which spread out in soft mud, cows can run faster than horses in deep mud. Next time you go to the race track and the track is exceptionally muddy, bet on the cow. How many furlongs a cow can run at top speed, or wants to, hasn't been documented, so the thoroughbred may still come out on top. Cows can climb too. They can climb up a flight of stairs. Once up there, getting them back down is another issue.
Milk, And Gas - You've probably read one place or another while studying facts about cows, that a cow will give up to 25 gallons of milk a day. What you may not know is that the average cow will typically produce 5 times that volume in gas, which makes one wonder if we're using cows for the right reason. A cow won't give milk until she has first given birth to a calf. Most of us always believed that if you purchased a female calf, or a heifer, a female that hasn't yet had a calf, it would just start giving milk one day. It won't.
When a cow is milked, one of the first things that is done with the milk is it is chilled. The reason is, the milk when leaving the cow, is at the same temperature as the body temperature of the cow, 101 degrees F. Unless it's promptly chilled, bacteria may start to form which may or may not be a good thing. My grandfather had a cow, my grandmother milked it, and I often had a glass of warm milk. I'm still here, so the bacteria must have been good bacteria.
Cultured Cow - You may have heard or read that cows who have the opportunity to listen to music often are more content, and produce more milk. This appears to be an established fact. Furthermore, it is claimed that cows have a definite preference for classical music. This makes sense, as the cow can hear over a wider range of frequencies than can a human. It will detect very low notes, and very high notes we can't hear. A symphony therefore probably sounds much richer and fuller to the cow than it does to us.
Cash Cow - A cow is a potential money maker when milk prices are high. 25 gallons of milk per day, at roughly $7 a gallon, gives you $175. Two bales of hay, which is slightly more than a cow will eat, costs around $15. Assuming the farmer receives about half the market price of the milk, or $80 a day, that cow is earning $65 a day. Of course there are other expenses to keeping a cow, many others, and a typical dairy cow may only give milk for 4 years or so. Still, that's around 8,000 gallons of milk, total.
Drunk Cow - One of the more unusual facts about cows is that you seldom see one that is drunk. Maybe they'll get into some bad silage once in a while, but the point is this. We learned at a young age that a cow has four stomachs. One of these serves as a fermentation chamber. All the food the cow eats is fermented before finally being digested. One would think that 90 pounds of food, when fermented, would have some effect on the cow's ability to walk a straight line. Apparently not.