North Carolina Milk Cows In 1928

Have you ever sat around and wondered how many milk cows North Carolina had in 1928? Have you ever wondered how many cows per person Alleghany County had in 1928? Or maybe Dare County?

If so, you are in luck. The answers are below:

The chart comes from the following pamphlet: Live-At-Home Week In The Public Schools Of North Carolina, February 10-14, 1930; Cp971.89 N87p11

Just in case you can’t read the charts–there were 275,454 milk cows in North Carolina in 1928. Alleghany had the highest per capita total with 2.9 persons per cow, and Dare had the lowest at 164 persons per cow.

3 thoughts on “North Carolina Milk Cows In 1928”

  1. From the North Carolina Dept. of Agriculture Web site:

    North Carolina Dairy Facts
    (January 1, 2008)
    1.The North Carolina dairy industry generated approximately one-half billion dollars in economic activity in 2006.
    2.North Carolina has 11 Grade A milk processing plants (8 large commercial fluid milk processors & 3 producer / processors), 1 large commercial cheese processing plant and several smaller homestead cheese operations. North Carolina Class I plant milk production was approximately 107,126,655 gallons in 2005.

    3.North Carolina farm milk production in 2005 was an estimated 118,860,000 gallons.

    4.There were 321 commercial dairy farms in North Carolina as of Jan. 1, 2007.

    5.In North Carolina, cash receipts for the sale of milk by dairy farmers amounted to $163 million in 2005.

    6.The mailbox price paid to North Carolina dairy farmers was an estimated $13.41 per hundred weight or approximately $1.16 for each gallon of milk they produced in 2006.

    7.In 2005, an estimated 54,000 cows were being milked commercially

    8.Each dairy cow in North Carolina produced an average of 2,164 gallons of milk.

    9.In North Carolina, about 64 percent of the milk produced in 2006 was used as Class I dairy products.

    10.North Carolina dairy cows produced an average of 5.9 gallons of milk per day, or enough to make 5.1 pounds of cheese or 1.8 pounds of butter. To produce this much milk, a cow consumes 35 gallons of water, 20 pounds of grain and concentrated feeds and 70 pounds of corn silage.

    11.The average daily expense per milking cow is about $9.90. It takes $3.60 to pay for feed, $1.60 for other livestock expenses and $.65 for crop related costs. Employee pay, machinery cost and normal overhead expense is another $3.00 per day. Depreciation of farm assets and interest on debt amounts to $1.05 per day. An additional $1.85 per day is the estimated value of family labor, living expense and debt retirement.

    12.In 2005, a dairy cow in North Carolina cost about $1,830. A typical North Carolina commercial dairy herd has approximately 160 cows.

    13.Dairy ranks 11th among all North Carolina commodities for farm gate value.

  2. In other livestock news from 1928, the University of North Carolina Newsletter reported that since 1920 the number of horses in the state had fallen dramatically from 171,000 to 105,000, while the number of mules had risen from 257,000 to 282,000…. The automobile was rapidly replacing the horse on the road and in the field, but the mule hadn’t yet succumbed to the tractor.

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