Question: do cows need to be pregnant to milk

Answer: No, The dairy cow will produce large amounts of milk in its lifetime. Production levels peak at around 40 to 60 days after calving. Production declines steadily afterwards until milking is stopped at about 10 months. The cow is ``dried off'' for about sixty days before calving again. Within a 12 to 14-month inter-calving cycle, the milking period is about 305 days or 10 months long. Among many variables, certain breeds produce more milk than others within a range of around 6,800 to 17,000 kg (15,000 to 37,500 lbs) of milk per year. The Holstein Friesian is the main breed of dairy cattle in Australia, and said to have the ``world's highest'' productivity, at 10000L of milk per year. The average for a single dairy cow in the US in 2007 was 9164.4 kg (20,204 lbs) per year, excluding milk consumed by her calves, whereas the same average value for a single cow in Israel was reported in the Philippine press to be 12,240 kg in 2009. High production cows are more difficult to breed at a two-year interval. Many farms take the view that 24 or even 36 month cycles are more appropriate for this type of cow.