The average cow eats about 20 lbs. of hay, 20 lbs. of corn silage, 10 to 20 lbs. of corn, and 6 to 12 lbs. of supplements each day. If we ate as much as cows, we would have to eat about 360 cheeseburgers and drink about 400 to 800 glasses of water each day. That’s approximately 25 to 50 gallons of water, about the size of a bathtub of water. It probably helps that cows have a large stomach, with four compartments to digest their food. Plus, they have to keep up their figure, since the average cow weighs about 1,400lbs.
They also spend about 6 hours a day eating and another 8 hours chewing their cud. Most cows chew at least 50 times per minute, with more than 40,000 jaw movements in a day. All that chewing is done by 32 teeth, 8 incisors on the bottom front, 6 molars on each side on the top and bottom. The front of a cow’s grin is only a tough pad of skin.
All that eating helps the cows produce about 8 gallons of milk per day. To get to that amount, they are milked 2 to 3 times a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year.
Other Interesting Facts About Cows:
- Cows can catch a scent from 6 miles away.
- They can produce 125 lbs. of saliva a day.
- Cows are red-green colorblind.
- The typical cow stands up and sits down about 14 times a day.
- There are approximately 340 to 350 squirts in a gallon of milk.
- There are 7 breeds of dairy cattle – Ayrshire, Brown Swiss, Guernsey, Holstein, Red and White Holstein, Jersey, and Milking Shorthorn
- Heifers usually have their first calf around age 2.
- A cow’s gestation is the same as a human, 9 months.
- Before a milk can produce milk, she must give birth to start lactating.
- She will give milk for about 10 months, then milk production is stopped for two months before she gives birth and starts another 10-month milk cycle.
- Cows actually do not bite grass; instead they curl their tongue around it.
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