A Day in the Life of a
Happy Cow at Mawley Farm!
Have you ever wondered what a typical day is like for a dairy cow?
At our farm, we make sure our cows live a comfortable, low-stress life.
In this post, I’ll give you an inside look into a day in the life of a Mawley cow!
Life on the Farm
Our cows spend their autumn/winter days in spacious, well-ventilated barns with room to roam around and socialise. The barns have ‘cublices’ – padded mattresses for the cows to comfortably lie down on, topped with chopped straw bedding for extra comfort and absorbency. They have access to nutritious food and fresh water 24/7.
The cow’s day starts early. Our farmers head out to the milking shed first thing in the morning to check the herd. They clean down the robots, change filters, hand-scrape all the beds clean and rake fresh chopped straw onto the matress-lined cubicles for the cows to have a clean soft place to rest.
While the cubicles are cleaned, the cows wander to the feeding area, where we feed them an all-you-can-eat buffet of nutritious home-grown forage, silage, mixed rations and minerals. The cows have constant access to fresh water, vital to keep their digestive systems healthy.
We use automatic floor scrapers to keep the cows’ living space clean and we manually scrape any spots the auto-scrapers can’t reach at least twice a day. Cows aren’t too picky about where they “go” so we make sure to keep things clean and tidy for them!
Milking Made Easy
Our cows can voluntarily visit the Fullwood milking robots anytime they choose, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. We have 6 milking robots in the barn that the cows can use at their own pace. On average, each cow stops by 3-4 times a day to get milked. The cows wear a pedometer that identifies her to the robot. The robot cleans and preps the teats, attaches the milking cluster, and tracks her milk output via the farm computer.
In the afternoon, we run through the same routine of checking all of the cows have been to be milked and then clean the beds for the second time that day. Any silage that is out of reached is pushed towards the cows with a dedicated silage scraper.
Between 6pm and 6am, our cows use the robots a whopping 451 times! That’s about 75 milkings on each robot overnight. The robots allow the cows to live according to their natural rhythms. Milking on their own schedule helps keep the cows healthy and stress-free.
Got an itch?
In between eating, milking, and sleeping, our cows enjoy automatic rotating brushes provide a satisfying scrub when they have an itch to scratch.
They are free to wander through the sheds where they have plenty of space to roam around. Cows are very sociable animals and they like to take time to socialise with their bovine besties. They form friendships within the herd and often spend time grooming each other or lying near their special pals.
Night lighting in the shed lets the cows see where they are going after the sun sets. Final evening and night time checks ensure all the cows are comfortable, well fed and contented.
At Mawley, happy cows make delicious dairy! Our bovine ladies enjoy a comfortable, cow-centered life here on our farm.
If you want to learn more about our cows, get in touch, we’d love to hear from you!
