Most young families living in rural areas, buying cattle, such as a cow, do not know how to properly care for and maintain it. The most dairy cows are found among animals of specialized dairy breeds: Yaroslavl, black-and-white, red steppe or Kholmogorsk. If you decide to raise a cow for meat, a mixed breed cow is suitable for this purpose: Swiss or Simmental.
Instructions
Step 1
Good housing is essential in keeping a cow. It is advisable to build a cowshed from adobe bricks, the internal cubic capacity should be at least 20 cubic meters per cow and at least 10 cubic meters per calf. The foundation of the barn must be strong enough, therefore it is most often built from fired brick or rubble stone, fastened with cement mortar or concrete.
Step 2
The walls of the barn must have heat-shielding properties, otherwise they will freeze in cold weather. Walls built of any material must be plastered and whitewashed inside. Since the walls are white, they reflect light rays well, and it becomes much brighter in the barn.
Step 3
The floors in the barn should be dry, even and warm, and most importantly, easy to clean from manure. The humidity of the air depends on the properties of the floor, it must be waterproof. For this, a good wooden floor is best suited, which needs to be replaced every three years, as it quickly breaks down. It is important to make the floor slope during construction, this is necessary for the drainage of urine and water.
Step 4
In the barn, you need to make a sufficiently spacious stall for the cow so that it is convenient to service and feed the animal, the floor area should be 2.5 square meters. A feeder made of planed boards should hold about 7 kg of straw or hay. Drive a ring into the rack next to the feeder, it is needed to tether the animal. The leash is just over one meter long.
Step 5
The barn should have enough fresh air and light. Therefore, ventilate it regularly. The optimum temperature for keeping a cow is 8-10 degrees with fluctuations of 4-20 degrees. At this temperature, the cow spends less feed and energy to maintain a constant body temperature and heat the body. An exhaust pipe with a ventilation flap must be installed in the roof.
Step 6
At the entrance to the barn, make a special disinfection mat, which can be made from a box with sawdust, which must be periodically moistened with a solution of caustic soda or formalin. Thanks to this, you will prevent the introduction of infection. The barn should contain equipment - a shovel, broom, pitchfork, brush and buckets.
Step 7
The cow should be brushed daily with a special brush one hour after milking, this will increase her appetite and milk production. It is not necessary to clean the cow while feeding, it will lead to poor eating and will disturb her. Stubborn dirt can be washed off with lukewarm water.
Step 8
The litter in the stall should be free from weed seeds and poisonous plants. One of the best bedding materials is straw or dry sawdust. Change the litter regularly as it becomes dirty and humid; if not removed, poisonous gases such as hydrogen sulfide and ammonia are formed, which irritate not only the eyes, but also the upper respiratory tract.
Step 9
In the summer season, the main feed for the cow is grass, which can provide up to 15 liters of milk without additional supplementary foods. If a cow yields more than 15 liters of milk yield, she should be given concentrated feed (cake, grain waste, mixed feed, legumes and cereals) in a ratio of 100 g per liter of milk.
Step 10
Compliance with the optimal regime in feeding, resting and grazing affects the milk production of a cow. First of all, make sure that the intervals between milkings and feedings are the same. A cow with a milk yield of 15-20 liters of milk must be milked and fed 3 times a day: at 5 am, at 1 pm and at 9 pm. Make sure that water is always present, as underdrinking an animal can lead to a decrease in milk yield.
Step 11
In winter, you need to feed the cows twice a day, constantly providing them with water from automatic drinkers. The water temperature must be at least 10 degrees. Give a cow weighing 500 kg daily 7-10 kg of good hay, 3-5 kg of concentrates, 17-20 kg of succulent feed (melons, silage, roots and tubers) and 40 g of chalk and salt. In this case, the cow's maintenance will be optimal both for milk yield and for maintaining excellent health.
