Exact Answer: 18-22 Years
Cows are a valuable resource to farmers. They provide milk, meat, and hide for the farmer’s use by grazing on grass or hay. Cows live an average of 5 years in the US before they’re slaughtered for their meat or sold off as dairy cows.
Cows are a major part of the agricultural industry in North America and can live up to 18-22 years. However, cows in developing countries don’t make it past their second birthday due to malnutrition and disease. The lifespan of a cow depends on many factors, including genetics, nutrition, health care, climate, and environment.
How Long Do Cows Live?
| Breed | Time |
| Cow | 18-22 Years |
| Bull | 15-20 Years |
Cows can live for 18-22 years. Unfortunately, few cows live to 30 years old due to murder by their animal murderers or death in natural disasters. Very few come close to 40.
Cows can live to a ripe old age. Depending on different factors, a cow’s life expectancy is anywhere from three to twenty-five years. Factors that determine the lifespan of cows include their genetics, diet, living conditions, and environment.
It depends on what one expects them to do and how the cattle are managed to graze wise. In good environments, nutrition levels and breeds all affect their expected lifespan too.
A typical lifespan is around 18–22 years, with some individuals reaching 25 or beyond. A good example of a long-lived individual was an Irish Dexter cow aged 27 years. These breeds are famous for their longevity.
The average cow’s lifespan is about 15 years. While this might not feel like a long time, it’s important to remember that cows spend most of their lives as dairy cows, only retiring from the workforce at 4-5 years old. In addition, if they receive proper care as a calf and as an adult, cows can easily live for 20 to 30 years on rare occasions.
Pregnancy and lactation occupy most of the cow’s adult life. Consequently, cows have two biological clocks—the reproductive clock controlled by hormones that dictate the reproductive cycle and the tissue clock controlled by natural mechanisms that control tissues’ ability to regenerate or repair.
Why Would Cows Live So Long?
Cows live so long for several reasons. One of the primary drivers of aging is oxidative stress, where free radical damage accumulates over time to cause health problems like diabetes and age-related diseases.
The increased levels of glutathione in milk protect against oxidative stress, which may be one reason why it appears to prolong aging in animals. This is because cows’ milk helps protect against oxidative stress.
At this point, milk production declines exponentially, averaging about 4% per day. It becomes more important for the producers to increase herd size quickly with young stock rather than retain older cows who may still produce some milk but will eventually be culled.
Researchers have discovered that cows can change the flavor of their milk depending on what they eat. It is the first time that self-tasting behavior may have been proved advantageous to an animal other than humans. Moreover, when cows are fed diets rich in plant fiber, which has many antioxidants, one might be surprised how good it tastes.
To produce healthy beef with good flavor and texture, one needs animals who have been treated well from birth until slaughtering. This means they should be allowed plenty of space outside to graze on grasses or hay rather than being confined indoors.
Cows are an amazing species. They have been on this planet for thousands of years, and they are still going strong. Their long life spans are the result of several factors, including genetics, diet, environment, health care, and management practices.
Conclusion
Contrary to 18-22 years of typical life, cows can naturally live from 15-20 years. However, most dairy cows only live to see 5 years as they are sent to slaughter. In industry-level breeding, calves are immediately separated from the mother after only hours of being born.
An average cow can produce up to 23000 liters of milk, although one should remember that cows can only produce milk when they give birth to a calf, just like humans. This beats the common misconception on how cows produce milk throughout their lives. Cows can get pregnant after they are 25 months old.
References
- https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0022030289790810
- https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/0093691X9500279H
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