Kourage - and several of her friends - lives at the Dairy Barn of the Canada Agriculture and Food Museum in Ottawa. One of the few cows in the barn who seemed interested by my presence, I was drawn to her curious nature and soulful brown eyes. She was very engaging, and seemed to enjoy the few moments we spent together.

« The Museum’s working dairy barn is home to a herd of 40 to 50 dairy cows. This herd is made up of the six most common dairy breeds in Canada.

Museum staff milk the cows twice daily (6 a.m. and 4 p.m.). They use a modern milking machine that takes 3 to 5 minutes per cow, versus the 10 to 15 minutes hand-milking would take. Cows are milked 305 days a year and rest the other 60 days. The Museum’s milk goes to Dairy Farmers of Ontario to be processed and distributed in grocery stores.

Canada has one of the highest average milk-per-cow ratios in the world (8,738 kilograms per 305 days). There are over 20,000 dairy farms in Canada with an average 54 cows per herd. That totals approximately 1.2 million dairy cows. Ontario and Quebec produce the most milk. »