Heifers Homecoming...

Settlement on the other farm happened a few weeks ago, but we were able to keep the dozen or so bred heifers over there until we ran out of feed.  I'd say Jim planned pretty well...last fall he had to guestimate how much silage we would need until late Feb/early March, and it worked out just right!  We brought them home on Saturday morning.

These three youngin's have no idea how their world is going to change.  They're used to having the run of the outside pen...

It took about fifteen minutes to load the ten heifers and young bull into the the trailer, and another five minutes to get them home...

(those barn cleaners are getting a long needed rest after being used daily for many, many years)

The outside pen is once again full of animals, back home where they "grew up"...

They don't care much where they are, just so there's food, water and shelter available!

Once the meadow greens up this spring, we'll let them out to graze to their heart's content.  As they spring up, they'll then be sold at a dairy sale.  Anyone need some nice first calf heifers?

The Average Age of a Dairy Cow...

"What is the average age of a dairy cow?"

I've been asked this question numerous times, and never had a really good answer.  So this morning when I was asked again, I decided to figure out what the average age of the lactating cows on our dairy farm is.

I went to the trusty old "heifer book".

This is where we write down all the information about our animals.

As each heifer calf is born, she is assigned an ear tag number, which is simply a chronological record of each heifer born here.  She gets her own line in the heifer book, where we record her birth date, her sire's identification...her dam's identification, and a list of all the genealogy that we have on file for her.

This is a sample of the genealogy side of the book.  (If you are a dairy farmer, some of these sires' names might look familiar to you. Mascot...Peti...Trifecta...Belltone...they were really good bulls in their time, but are only now a distant memory)  We bought the cows from Jim's dad over twenty years ago, so the genealogy list barely fits on the page any more...

We keep a lot of other information in this book as well.  Such as...any illness that a young calf may have that could affect her health or milk production as a cow, and how and why each cow is sold.

Ok...back to the question at hand..."What is the average age of a dairy cow?"

I checked to see how old each of our lactating cows are right now...

We have Dirty Pig...who is almost twelve years old...

We have the Twin...who is herself a twin...who has had three sets of twins...and who will be ten in a few months...

(interesting tidbit on those first two cows...they're both aggressive (not mean) and know how to hold their own among their herd mates.  Don't make them wait for their food, and don't boss them around!  Maybe that's why they're still going strong and two of our highest producers at their age?)

We have a handful of cows who are seven or eight years old...

And then there are fourteen first calf heifers (between two and three years old) and another big cluster in the four to five year range.

The answer to the question here...on our farm...is an average age of about 4 1/2 years.  

I was surprised...I really thought that the average would be a bit older than that, but all those first calf heifers really lowered the average.  Then I googled the average of dairy cows in the United States, and guess what?

It's four years!