Viikki is home to dairy cows, or cows that produce milk.
The food given to cows is called feed. The main feed for cows is grass. Grass is a mixture of plants including timothy, meadow fescue and clover. In the summer, cows graze, or eat fresh grass outdoors in the field. For the winter, grass must be preserved. It is then called silage.
The Viikki cows graze from May to September, or from spring to autumn. If it rains heavily or is very hot, the cows prefer to stay in the cowshed.
Alongside grass, cows eat grains and protein-rich feed. Feed grains typically consist of barley or oats. Protein feed often includes rapeseed meal. It is a byproduct obtained when rapeseed is turned into cooking oil. Protein feed may also contain faba beans or peas. In Finland, cows are not fed soya.
Cows have four stomachs: the large rumen (about 100 litres in volume), the reticulum, the omasum and the abomasum. The rumen has billions of microbes that digest, meaning they break down, fibre in the grass they eat. Digestion in the rumen produces carbon dioxide and methane as byproducts. Each cow burps about 500 litres of methane every day.
Methane is a greenhouse gas, which means it affects the climate. Greenhouse gases make Earth heat up more by holding in the sun’s warmth.
Methane from cows accounts for about 5% of Finland’s total greenhouse gas emissions. This amount can be reduced in two ways.
Cows can be given feeds that produce less methane. Or cows can be bred to produce less methane per kilo of milk. Breeding means selecting the animals with the best qualities to be the parents of the next generation.