New Zealanders outnumbered by cows (2024)

FAQs

New Zealanders outnumbered by cows? ›

New Zealanders have long endured jokes about the extent to which they are outnumbered by sheep. But now Kiwis can expect more variety in the gags, with the country's national statistical office announcing that the population has also been overtaken by that of dairy cattle.

In Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Dakota and Wyoming cows are more numerous than people. There is one cow for every 3.6 people in the U.S.” Source: Beef2Live, April 16, 2023.

Average size of dairy cow herds New Zealand 2013-2022

In 2022, the average size of a dairy cow herd in New Zealand amounted to 449 animals.

Cows are fascinating, intelligent and social animals!

Cows in Aotearoa play a very important role in the dairy sector because we are the animals that make the milk you drink! There are 4.9 million milking cows in Moo Zealand! Cows live in groups called herds - the average herd size for a Moo Zealand farm is 444.

The New Zealand dairy industry is based almost exclusively on cattle, with a population of 4.92 million milking cows in the 2019–20 season. The income from dairy farming is now a major part of the New Zealand economy, becoming an NZ$13.4 billion industry by 2017.

India had the largest cattle inventory in the world in 2023 followed by Brazil and China. India's cattle's inventory was reported at 307.5 million head in 2023, accounting for roughly 33% of the world's inventory. India, Brazil and China accounted for roughly 64% of the world's cattle inventory in 2023.

But there's a slight problem, and it involves New Zealand's non-humans — specifically cattle. For a country that has more cows (6.2 million) and sheep (26 million) than people (5.1 million), there was always a danger of — no, not a bovine or ovine coup — but a blast of civilisations.

In 2020, the nationwide density of livestock was 265.8 animals per km2 of farming land. Sheep were the predominant stock animal, with an overall density of 187.3 animals per km2, approximately four times that of the next most common animal — dairy cattle, with 44.6 animals per km2 (Figure 2).

Stocking rate is typically up to three stock units per hectare.

There are at least fourteen extant species of feral ungulate in New Zealand, including cattle, sheep, goats, tahr, chamois, horses, pigs, and the seven species of deer (fallow, red, wapiti, sika, rusa, sambar, whitetail).

What country eats the most cows? ›

Based on a comparison of 165 countries in 2020, Argentina ranked the highest in cattle meat consumption per capita with 46.9 kg followed by Zimbabwe and USA. On the other end of the scale was Dem. Republic of the Congo with 0.260 kg, Liberia with 0.420 kg and Mozambique with 0.560 kg.

Holstein Friesian: Leaders in Milk Volume and Farming Efficiency. Holstein Friesians dominate the dairy industry both in New Zealand and globally, known for their remarkable milk production capabilities.

The original fruit is from the Far East, having been grown in what is now modern-day China for many centuries. It was only at the turn of the 20th Century, in 1904, that it arrived on New Zealand shores, when New Zealand school principal Isabel Fraser brought some kiwifruit seeds back from her travels.

Filters. Flexible milking is a term for milking practices that fall between the traditional once-a-day (OAD) or twice-a-day (TAD) milking. Once-a-day (OAD) milking is the practice of milking cows only once during a 24-hour period. This page covers the reasons and options for implementing OAD milking on your farm.

According to the United States Department of Agriculture (USA), India is the country with the largest number of cows worldwide. This country precisely protects cattle for being "sacred".

Four (4) countries in the world had more cattle than people in 2021: Uruguay, New Zealand, Argentina and Brazil. Brazil has over 250 million head of cattle and 211 million people.

With a relatively small population of 576,851 and 1,240,000 cattle, Wyoming has a ratio of 2.15 cattle per person. The vast, open landscapes of Wyoming provide ample space for cattle ranching, making it an important industry for the state.

North Dakota came in at third place, with over 2.24 cows for every North Dakotan (1,750,000 ND cows to ND 779,702 humans). Which states are more outnumbered than us, though? Well, Nebraska came in second with 3.31 cows for every human.

There are a lot of cows on this planet. In fact, there's around one and a half billion! That's nearly one cow for every five people. Some countries, like New Zealand, even have more cows than humans.