About Dairy Farms
Dairy farms are vital to the health of most Americans. They supply the milk and dairy products that provide protein and calcium to millions of adults and children each day. The U.S. dairy farming industry is a thriving, mostly family-owned and operated industry that continues to meet the nutritional needs of the American public by producing safe, pasteurized milk and dairy products.
Other People Are Reading
-
History
-
Small dairy farms have been in existence for thousands of years, but large dairy farms were not found in the United States until the late 1800s. All milking on dairy farms was done by hand until 1878 when the first automatic suction milk machine was invented, though some small dairy farmers continued to milk by hand until the 1940s. Automatic suction milk machines have evolved over the years and are still used today as a highly effective way of milking cows. All milk produced today by dairy farms is pasteurized and produced into different dairy products either on the premises or at a nearby pasteurization facility.
Types
-
Not all breeds of cattle produce the same quality and amount of milk, so many dairy farms use only the most proven and high-volume dairy cow breeds for milking. The six primary breeds of dairy cows used in dairy farming are the Ayrshire, Brown Swiss, Guernsey, Holstein, Jersey and the Milking Shorthorn. Many dairy farmers prefer to use mixed breed dairy cows in their operations.
-
Features
-
Dairy farms are considered some of the most economic farming establishments because all the farmland is used to feed and house the dairy cows. Crops like corn, alfalfa and hay are grown to feed the dairy cows, and the rest of the land is often dedicated to loafing barns and milking parlors. Dairy cow manure can be used as fertilizer on the farm or sold to garden stores.
In order for dairy farms to be profitable operations, dairy farmers must make certain that their cows are constantly in the 12 to 16 months cycle of impregnation, pregnancy, lactating and the drying up period before being impregnated again. Many of the calves born from dairy cows are then raised for veal.
Dairy farms expect that on average a dairy cow will produce 6 to 7 gallons of milk per day, with current U.S. dairy farm production at 21 billion gallons of milk a year. Most milk produced by dairy farms travels under 100 miles to a grocery store to ensure freshness and quality.
Considerations
-
There are 60,000 dairy farms in the United States with less than 2 percent of the population involved in dairy farming as an occupation. Over 99 percent of these dairy farms are family-owned, including large dairy farming operations. Dairy farms with less than 100 cows make up for over 75 percent of all dairy farms, with the average herd size for a U.S. dairy farm at 135 full-grown dairy cows.
The five states with the highest rates of dairy farm production in the United States are California, Wisconsin, New York, Pennsylvania and Idaho.
Misconceptions
-
There are many misconceptions about the safety of drinking milk that the National Dairy Council is working to discredit, include widespread beliefs that consuming dairy can lead to heart disease and cancer, which the National Dairy Council reports is false. The Council states, with research-supported evidence, that consuming the recommended amount of low-fat dairy products can actually prevent heart disease and certain types of cancer.
The belief that pesticides and harmful hormones are commonly found in milk is also false. All milk must be meet certain safety and health guidelines or it cannot be sold to the public.
-
