Cattle Reproduction

For dairy and bottle calves: At two months you should begin to feed the calf grain. At about 3 months the calf should be eating hay and be limited to 1 bottle of milk a day. At 4 months the calf should be weaned.

For beef calves, they should be weaned when they are 6 to 8 months of age by separating them from their mothers for a few weeks to several months. Beef calves can be naturally weaned at about 10 to 11 months of age when the cow decides when her calf needs to be weaned. The weaning time will depend on how well the calf has grown, the body condition of the cows, the market a producer wants to target, and pasture condition and/or winter feed supplies. Some producers may be forced to early-wean their beef calves when they are 3 to 4 months of age due to decreased pasture conditions like drought, and/or the calf is "pulling his/her dam down" too much (i.e., the cow is loosing condition feeding her calf when she should be gaining when lactating).

A dairy calf needs colostrum in its first few hours of life, so the calf is allowed to stay with its mother for a day or two. It is then, in commercial dairy operations, taken away to be placed in a calf hut or pen or in a calf barn and is bottle-fed with milk-replacer for a few months before being weaned.

However, on farms where dairy cows are kept as either nurse cows or as a hobby-farm milk cow, a calf will stay with its momma for at least 4 to 6 months, sharing the udder with one or two other orphaned beef calves.

Photos of a calf drinking milk from a cow are fairly easy to find. Most stock photo sites would have some pictures of calves nursing from their mothers. They can also be found in books about farms and farm animals.

Any warmblooded animal usually does not produce milk unless it has first produced offspring for which it produces milk from it's udder. Any cow or goat milks for a period of time after it gives birth to it's baby. We give some of the milk to the baby and keep the rest of it for ourselves. This is workable because modern ruminants are bred to produce more milk than their babies need. After a period of time that fluctuates from animal to animal, the milk production will eventually decrease to little or nothing. To keep the supply going, it is necessary to have the animal get pregnant and produce another baby. This requires either a mating between a male and female or introduction of semen which is referred to as artificial insemination. A few months or weeks before the baby is expected the animal will be let to quit producing milk so it can rest and get ready with colostrum for the baby. The milk flow will be reestablished after birth and the animal will be referred to as being back in production. This cycle is usually repeated yearly, sometimes less often.

No, they produce a calf. That calf, if born a bull calf, must be castrated by humans (a steer) then trained (by humans) to pull a cart, wagon, etc. An ox is any kind of cattle that has been trained to work.

Only four teats on a cow shouldn't be considered as "many." The advantage of having four quarters--and thus four teats--on a cow is so that the calf doesn't suckle one milk gland completely dry. It also allows the calf to come back for seconds to the other quarter[s] that are still full of milk.

A newborn calf requires 6 L of colostrum within 12 hours of being born, preferably 4 L (1 gal.) immediately after birth (or within 4 hours) and 2 L (0.5 gal.) a few hours after.

Basically, newborn calves shouldn't be given milk right after birth. They need colostrum because it contains crucial antibodies and immunoglobins that are needed for its suppressed immune system. Colostrum is, really, a maternal transfer of antibodies from the dam to the calf. "Normal" milk shouldn't be introduced to a calf (gradually) until 24 to 36 hours after birth.

They use artificial selection. They select the best producing cows that give the most milk and breed them to bulls that have dams of the same quality to produce calves (or heifers) that exceed in milk productivity to their dams and grand-dams.

A cow should have four functional teats as maximum. She can, however, have two or more extra non-functional teats, none of which affect production nor milking ability. In dairy operations, though, these extra teats need to be removed so that the person with the milking machine doesn't hook up the vacuum pump to the wrong teat.

Lactation is a term for the time period that a cow, or any other female mammal, is able to produce milk. What defines such a period is by seeing how tight and swollen the udder is on that cow. If the udder looks tight and swollen and all four teats look full, then she is obviously in her lactation period. This goes for all types of cows, beef and dairy alike.

The time when cows are not producing milk or lactating.

Of course it is! They do it all the time! Dairy cows that are pregnant still give milk until a couple months before they have to give birth again, and beef cows that get pregnant a couple months after giving birth to their last calf (which they're still suckling) still give milk until their calf is weaned at around 6 to 10 months of age.

A dairy cow will lactate for about 10 months (~305 days) each year before having to be dried up prior to giving birth to her next calf, or until she loses productivity or dies of illness or natural causes. Dairy cows will typically be lactating for 10 months out of the year; some may go longer if they are continuously milked.

Beef cows, on the other hand, typically will lactate or give milk for 6 to 8 months (~205 to 265 days), sometimes up to 10, before they are weaned from their calves, or when the cows themselves decide to kick their calves off before giving birth to their next calf. For those producers who would rather let the cows wean their calves naturally (called natural weaning), the lactation or milking period typically lasts for around 10 months.

Of course lactation period for cows also depends on forage availability. Beef producers will wean calves early (often at around 3 to 4 months of age) if there's not enough feed or feed quality is too low to support lactating cows. This is a practice that is done often during periods of moderate to severe drought, when there often isn't enough grass or fodder to support the lactating beef herd. At this rate, calves are sold a bit earlier, or kept in a separate area to be fed until the actual sale time, allowing cows to dry up earlier and enabling them to be able to eat lower-quality feeds without compromising milking ability and the calves' reliance on their mothers' milk.

Not really. There are a lot of hobby farmers who only milk their cow[s] once a day instead of twice a day.

A cow only has one udder, with four teats for each quarter of the udder.

There is no "best" breed of dairy cattle. They all have their characteristics that are better than other breeds and other characteristics that are worse than other breeds. However, the most commonly found breed around the world is the Holstein-Freisian, which is considered one of the "best" milking breeds in terms of high milk production. But they cannot outdo the Jerseys in terms of milk fat content.

Dry cattle are cattle that are not giving milk. The term specifically refers to female cattle typically referred to as "cows."

Straight, unpasteurized milk from a cow, or powdered milk that is derived from unpasteurized milk (see your local large animal vet for the best milk replacer, as brands are sometimes different between countries/states/provinces, but basically are the same). NO SOY MILK REPLACER OR ANY MILK REPLACE THAT COMES FROM PLANT-BASED "MILK." Soy replacer is bad for calves because it doesn't contain the same amount of fats, proteins and calcium, among other nutrients, that is in cow's milk. You will kill your calf faster if you feed plant-based "milk" replacer than if you feed the real milk-based replacer.

A few weeks. Often the calf will die of starvation before then, if you either don't milk the cow out and tube the calf with her milk, try to make the calf suckle as much as you can, or if you don't bottle-feed the calf. So make sure you are caring for the calf if the calf can't suckle from his momma.

This depends on the cow, actually. Some cows may start lactation right after her calf is born, others (and this may refer to most) will start freshening (producing milk) a few days to even a few weeks prior to giving birth. One of the classic signs that a cow is about to give birth is that her udder and teats start to engorge themselves with milk.

Quality of the grass, quality of the feed (should be strictly a vegetarian diet of grains), overall health of the cow, overall happiness of the cow (yes, this is important to make the cows happy, this keeps stress hormones out of the milk), ect. Also, Farmers have machines that milk the cows, and these machines also homogenise and pasturise the milk. The milk is separated into the different percent catagories after it is put into the large tank. And the remaining factor is how quickly the milk arrives at the store.

0 to 2 days

A cow can lactate for as long as a couple years if she is still being milked, or if her calf hasn't been weaned (or she hasn't weaned her calf). However a cow is most productive during her first 3 to 4 months of lactation after parturition.

Cow and Gate is known as Almiron in Spain. You can generally find it in pharmacies.

Cow and Gate is known as Almiron in Spain. You can generally find it in pharmacies.

Cow and Gate is known as Almiron in Spain. You can generally find it in pharmacies.

Cow and Gate is known as Almiron in Spain. You can generally find it in pharmacies.

Cow and Gate is known as Almiron in Spain. You can generally find it in pharmacies.

Cow and Gate is known as Almiron in Spain. You can generally find it in pharmacies.

Cow and Gate is known as Almiron in Spain. You can generally find it in pharmacies.

Cow and Gate is known as Almiron in Spain. You can generally find it in pharmacies.

Cow and Gate is known as Almiron in Spain. You can generally find it in pharmacies.

Cow and Gate is known as Almiron in Spain. You can generally find it in pharmacies.

Cow and Gate is known as Almiron in Spain. You can generally find it in pharmacies.