America's Dairyland stayed true to its name last year as the
state set another record for total milk production. The latest government
figures from the USDA confirmed that Wisconsin produced 30.5 billion pounds of
milk in 2018, about one percent more than the previous record of 30.3 billion
harvested in 2017. Milk per cow also rose to an all-time high of 24,002 pounds,
up 277 pounds from the year earlier.
As of January 1, there were 8,110 licensed milk cow
operations in the state. That was down 691 from a year ago, and the fourth
consecutive year that the herd count was below the 10,000 mark in generations.
Meanwhile, Wisconsin's overall livestock inventory decreased
slightly last year. As of January 1, about 3.5 million head of cattle were
counted in the state.
The total number of milk cows at year's end was around 1.27
million head, about 5,000 less than the previous year--keeping Wisconsin second
behind California for number of milk cows.