Cow Facts, Information & Trivia
Cows Through History
Cows were domesticated approximately 5,000 years ago.
The Greek physician Hippocrates recommended milk as a medicine some 2,300 years ago.
Cheese was an important item in the diet of the Vikings, and was an article of commerce in ancient Rome. Monks in Europe developed the art of cheesemaking in the Middle Ages.
On his second voyage to the New World, among other freight, Christopher Columbus brought cattle.
The arrival of dairy cows from Europe in America in 1611 helped end starvation in the Jamestown Colony.
The first documented ice cream parlor opened in 1776, in New York City. George Washington reportedly liked ice cream so much, he ran up a $200 bill for ice cream one summer.
In 1841, a New York and Erie Railroad stationmaster asked a farmer to try shipping milk by rail 60 miles to New York City. They successfully shipped a wooden churn holding 60 gallons. A few years later wooden containers for shipment were replaced by metal cans.
The glass milk bottle was invented by Hervey D. Thatcher in 1880.
The modern large-scale dairy industry developed with the growth of cities and fast, refrigerated transportation. Mechanical refrigeration began in the 1880s.
In 1892 Nathan Straus established the first infant milk depot in the United States. He offered sterilized milk for sale at five cents a quart or one cent a glass.
Trivia
Cows can walk up a flight of stairs, but they can’t walk down a flight of stairs. Their knees don’t bend properly for going down.
A cow stands up and lies down about 14 times a day.
The average cow spends 6 hours per day eating and 8 hours chewing cud. It eats about 95 pounds of feed per day and drinks about 30 gallons of water.
A cow can emit about 350 liters (230 grams) of methane per day. A 1,000 pound cow produces an average of 10 tons of manure a year.
Calves are born with pads on their sharp little hooves to protect their mother’s birth canal. These pads wear off easily as the little calf struggles to stand up.
The average life span of a cow is 25 years.
The smallest type of cow is a breed called Dexter, which was bred small for household living.
The tail is the cow’s mood barometer. Unlike the dog, a “wagging” tail does not make a happy cow. Not being milked in a timely fashion, dinner off schedule, calves bellowing, and flies are the major causes of crabby cows. Crabby cows generate crabby farmers.