Back | More Than Just a Day on Cow Appreciation Day

Cow Appreciation Day

 

“We were quite surprised to find out that there is an International Cow Appreciation Day,” said Johannes Loubser, who is in charge of milk production at Fair Cape Dairies. “We run a commercial dairy farm, but we can say with absolute confidence that our cows are appreciated every day of the year.”

 

Anyone visiting the Fair Cape Dairies farm will soon learn that the cows live an enviable life. They are Frieslands, so were originally bred in Holland in a much colder climate than they experience in the Durbanville Hills near Cape Town.

 

Cow Comfort Index

 

Fair Cape Dairies prides itself on its Cow Comfort Index: a system that tracks and monitors the health and well-being of every cow on the farm.

 

“Our cows live in large open-sided sheds, where the temperature can be 10 degrees cooler in the summer months than they would experience if they were out in the fields,” Loubser said. “They have enough room to move around, they don’t have to compete for the food, and they even have massage machines which they can activate themselves whenever they feel like a good back scratch.” This includes Cow Appreciation Day and every other day at Fair Cape Dairies.

 

When the cows walk down to the milking parlour, the farm workers take the opportunity to hose down the sheds, and lay fresh straw. The water used for cleaning is recycled, and the solid waste is separated out and used as fertiliser on the fields, thereby avoiding the pollution of groundwater as much as is possible.

 

Our Cow’s Health

 

Each cow is fitted with a computer tacker on her leg. This allows the health of our cows to be monitored. On a traditional dairy farm, a cow could live her life with a sore leg, for example, and no-one would be the wiser. On the Fair Cape Dairies farm, if a cow takes fewer steps than her personal average, the in-house vet will know about it within hours, and she will get the treatment she needs.

 

“We also know if a cow is feeling a bit off colour, because we take a small sample of milk from each cow before the milking starts,” Loubser explained. “We run an electric current through the sample, and if the cow is ill the increase in white blood cells will affect the transmission of the current. That cow is immediately separated so that the vet can check her out.”

 

If a cow is ill and needs antibiotics, her milk is also separated and thrown away so that it is not included in the milk which is sold to the Fair Cape Dairies’ customers. The cows are never injected with hormones or given routine antibiotics.

 

Doing The Right Thing

 

“We believe that we are living up to our motto of doing the right thing,” Loubser said. “I’m confident that we are leading the field as a commercial operation in South Africa which is providing this level of care and comfort to the cows.”

 

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