This is a guest post from Israelinurse.
In the Torah, Israel is of course described as ‘a land flowing with milk and honey’ and as Shavuot approaches and we all enjoy the indulgence of delicious cheesecakes and other dairy products, let’s spare a thought for the hard-working creatures who even in this basically arid land make the milk flow every day of the year.
In Israel of course we are not blessed with the rainfall or the temperate climate which makes the UK such an ideal place for happy cows grazing in lush green fields. Long, hot, rainless summers and short winters with an average rainfall even here in the north hardly exceeding 900 millilitres (35.4 inches) mean that dairy cows cannot be left to their own devices as far as finding food is concerned; instead they have to be fed three times a day. Milk production always falls in hot weather, so herds have to be kept in covered pens with plenty of shade and electric fans to provide a cooling breeze. On our kibbutz, they are even treated to a twice-daily shower in the summer to help keep their body temperature down.
Despite the challenging conditions, our herd produces 4.2 million litres of milk per annum, with an annual average of 14,000 litres per cow or 38 litres a day, collected in three milking sessions. Israel has around 110,000 milking cows in the whole country, producing a total of over a billion litres a year.
Any visitor to Israel will no doubt have noticed that the local dairy produce contains much less fat than that in Europe or the US. This is due to the type of diet which the cows here are fed – a mixture of assorted dry feeds and silage. Seeing as the price paid for the milk depends upon its protein and fat content, farmers try to raise these values by various means, including the careful selection of a bull which will improve the new calf’s potential when the time comes for the cow to breed. Dairy cows in Israel actually never meet a bull; reproduction is carefully managed by means of artificial insemination and thus important parameters such as milk production and quality as well as the health and strength of the herd can be constantly improved.
In our dairy we have even had some help in recent years in improving the fat content of our milk from some ‘new immigrants’ from the Channel Islands: meet some of our ‘girls’.
Happy Hag Shavuot to everyone!
How dare you upstage me with such wonderful posts – you cow!
Joking. Wonderful post and thanks so much for this, Israelinurse. Shalom to the new girls!
Your cows are obviously true Israelis– succeeding beyond what anyone would have thought possible in spite of every obstacle in their way, thanks in large part to the loving care of a people who were raised with the precept: feed the animals before you feed yourselves! Have a great Shavuot.
Interesting post, just a pity the girls can’t get a good rogering from time to time.
Haha. And there was me expecting loads of cow puns. Jemoosalem, Herdzliya etc. There must be more.
Well said, Judy.
Happy Shavout to Israelinurse and to all my Jewish readers. Have a sweet one!
I love cows.
So lovely to read an unusual Shavuot post, and from the amazing Israelinurse, no less. I remember once talking about Israel with her late into the night over a coffee in Solihull, and we’d never even met before. A warm, intelligent, and thoughtful person, full of interesting facts and stories, as proven by this post!
I agree with Jonathan. I chatted with Israelinurse in a pizza restaurant in the West End and found her exactly the same. A very magical person!
but do you also love cows, Chas?
I do – and they love me!
What a wonderful post!
When I was a schoolgirl, more years ago than I care to acknowledge
, at a Jewish girls’ school in London, I would read the English translation to the Hebrew prayers in assembly, look out the windows at the grey, rainy, day, and wonder why on earth we were always praying for rain.
As an adult, I finally got it.
Chag Shavuot.
Chag sameach to all. I love all this sch-moo-zing of Israelinurse.
How very dairy you, Duvid!
Heve-moo shalom alechem.
Chag Samoooach
I admit I was a little cowed at the thought of replying, but I decided an udder comment was in order before this article from Israelinurse pastuerised and went into the archives:-))
Less than two weeks to go before I flit off to Israel. I just hope the wind doesn’t propel the ash towards us. The last thing we want on 31st is for our skies to be shades of graze.
Holy cow! I didn’t know all this stuff. So lovely to give the girls showers on hot days. Thank you for the information, Israelinurse.
And Charles, I could see the deep friendship between you and Bossy, even in a photograph.