The first dairy cow was brought to Canada in 1518, but the first Canadian dairy farm wasn't started until 1610 by Samuel de Champlain. In 1995-96, there were nearly 25,000 dairy farms in Canada, down from nearly 80,000 twenty years ago. Most dairy farms are located in Quebec and Ontario, and milk production totals 78 million hectolitres a year.

Types of Dairy Animals

There are approximately 1.3 million milking cows in Canada, primarily of the following breeds:

• Holstein-- These big black & white (sometimes red & white) cows are the most popular, making up about 90% of the dairy cattle. They give the most milk, about 6,843 litres/year/cow
• Jersey-- The smallest kind of dairy cattle, they are a shade of fawn, like a deer, sometimes with white markings and black noses. They give less milk than other breeds (4,569 litres/year/cow), but their milk has more butterefat. Jersey cows make up about 3% of dairy cows.
• Ayrshire-- This breed comes from Scotland. It has notable red & white markings. They give about 5,640 litres/year/cow. These cows make up about 3% of dairy cows.
• Brown Swiss-- They are probably the oldest breed in the world. They are light or dark brown in color and they give about 5,640 litres/year/cow. They make up less than 1% of all dairy cows in Canada.
• Guernsey-- They have fawn and white markings and are bigger than Jersey cows. They give more milk than Jerseys (5,162 litres/year/cow), but their milk has less butterfat. These cows make up about 1% of dairy cattle in Canada.

The Cow Count

• There are an average of 47 cows/dairy farm.
• In 1995, dairy cows produced between 7,000-8,000 kilograms of milk on average.
• Cows are big animals. When fully grown they reach 500-600kg.
• Cows can stand 2 metres at the shoulders

• Farmers
• Buyers
• Herd analysts
• Statistics Canada

• He draws her, photographs her, or brands her.
• He gives her a name and a number.
• He records her birthdate, her color, her father and his number, her mother and her number, if she is a twin, and her purebred status.

• The first name refers to the farm name (every farm has to be registered and its name is checked out to make sure there is no other farm or business with the same name).
• The second name comes from the bull or cow (so the farmer can quickly remember its mother or father).
• The third name is a new one -its own (farmers sometimes start the name with the same letter as the mothers or the same letter for a month or a year).

Even though the average dairy cow weighs about 590 kg (1300 lbs.), you may think it looks skinny because its bones stick out. But it's really not underfed - most of the food it eats is turned into milk instead of muscle or fat. This is in contrast to beef cattle, where most of the food goes into producing meat.

All cows are ladies (the gentlemen are called bulls). But before any cow can give milk, she must first become a mother, usually when she is around 2 years old. After she has given birth to her first calf, she can be milked for 10 months. Then she is given a rest for the next two months, before her next calf is born. A healthy cow continues to produce milk, and must be milked at least twice a day, usually at the same times every day.

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