Title: Milk production in 4c Author: CuriousZebra Pastebin link: http://pastebin.com/fPkEfAML First Edit: Thursday 16th of October 2014 07:46:17 PM CDT Last Edit: Last edit on: Wednesday 12th of November 2014 11:10:15 PM CDT This paste is intended to entertain the idea of getting a number of cows to take up residence in Fourcannon, and furthermore provide it with milk and other dairy products. It will attempt to outline the real world statistics of cow milk production and ultimately make a proposal for the introduction of dairy farming in town.   Google search of 'how much milk do cows produce in a day' yields between 6-7 gallons of milk daily. concurrent data was found by Pump: [21:16:25] Through a very quick Googlein' search I found that Cows produces 25-30 Liters of Milk per day [21:16:35] 1 Liter of Milk weighs roughly 1.04kg [21:16:46] And 10-7 Liters of Milk = 1kg of Cheese [21:18:15] Additionally, I found that Cows eat roughly 35kgs of food per day and drink roughly 80-180 Liters of water per day [21:18:25] At least Dairy Cows do   based on http://www.foodnavigator-usa.com/Markets/Average-US-milk-consumption-slumps-8-percent-in-past-decade average american consumes ~20 gallons of milk per year. or 0.055 gallons daily. If one cow was producing 6-7 gallons (6.5 for happy medium calculations) that would mean 6.5gallons produced daily/0.055 gallons consumed daily = 118.2 ponies supplied with milk for every cow in 4C. 4 cows could produce enough milk to supply everyone in town, and bear in mind these numbers are still utilizing the 0.055 gallons a day calculated for humans, not ponies   the calculations of 118.2 ponies is further backed up by data from http://www.dairymoos.com/how-much-milk-do-cows-give/ stating that one cows milk production produces roughly 128 glasses of milk. again, these are all statistics for humans, not ponies.   As for the subject of feeding, if 4 cows can theoretically provide a glass of milk to every pony in 4c with a little left over, an increase of 4 in the population, even if we took an extreme and stated they consumed double the rations, this does not appear to be an intense increase in feeding habits with 8 more mouths to feed. This is only assumption would have to be backed up by ration data, if we have it. But its not wholly implausible to consider.   food consumption link https://beef.unl.edu/cattleproduction/forageconsumed-day cows eat roughly 2% of their Body mass per day   http://www.myhorseuniversity.com/EE/July2013/FeedingByWeight horses eat between 1.5-3% of their body mass per day   if we accept these numbers, then the cows could possibly eat the same ration counts we do. of course we are ponies so maybe they would still eat more rations than us if we accept the first link data and cut the second link to be more appropriate.         sheep milk http://extension.psu.edu/business/ag-alternatives/livestock/sheep-and-goats/milking-sheep-production http://milkingsheep.com/sheep-milk-production/   looks like about half a gallon a day per sheep. not very efficient but >wool. consequently they dont eat as much as horses, so although we would need considerably more sheep to make up for milk production, the ration consumption could end up fairly equal.   from these numbers maybe posit to get 2-3 cows and about 10-15 sheep for both milking and wool purposes.