Cattle behaviour and needs
Understanding the natural behaviour of dairy cows can help explain their needs.
- Cattle are very social animals and live in groups called herds. Social hierarchies play an important role in herds, with some cows being more dominant than others. Cows also have preferred social partners in their groups, who they keep close to and are more likely to groom.
- Cattle are grazing animals and will feed on grasses and other plants that grow close to the ground. They tend to spend around a third to a half of their day grazing when kept in fields, eating more at dawn and dusk.
- The vegetation that cattle eat can be difficult to digest, so they’ve evolved a specialised digestive system – which famously contains four chambers – to help them digest it.
- Cows ‘ruminate’, which means they regurgitate, re-chew and then re-swallow partially digested food to further help digestion.
Cattle spend a large chunk of their day lying down – an important activity for cows, as it’s when they do most ruminating and when they rest and sleep.
Things to know before owning a dairy cow
- Choose the right breed since different breeds are better for different uses
- Teat care is very important and the Udders need to be cleaned constantly
- They have specific dietary requirements
- Vaccinations are key to prevent disease
- To keep your cow milking it needs to calve every year
- Prepare majorly for calving
- Keeping the calf will give you more freedom than selling it
Find out more about dairy cows
If you’d like to learn more, have a read of our information sheet on the welfare of dairy cows. We’ve written about our views on individual hutches for calves and on grazing dairy cows, and you can also find out more about how dairy cows are farmed.
