US farms had 9,309,855 milk cows at the end of 2022, and 20.0% of them were in just ten counties. Tulare County, CA alone held 480,992, or 5.2% of the national herd, far more than any other county with a published figure. Seven of the ten leading dairy counties are in California and two in Idaho. The national herd was 2.4% smaller than at the 2017 census.
The leading dairy counties
The list below ranks counties by milk cows on hand on December 31, 2022. The change column compares each county with its own 2017 figure.
| # | County | Milk cows | Share of US | Since 2017 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Tulare County, CA | 480,992 | 5.2% | −3.9% |
| 2 | Merced County, CA | 288,973 | 3.1% | +6.0% |
| 3 | Gooding County, ID | 165,205 | 1.8% | +1.4% |
| 4 | Stanislaus County, CA | 153,912 | 1.7% | −16.1% |
| 5 | Kings County, CA | 150,643 | 1.6% | −13.1% |
| 6 | Weld County, CO | 134,728 | 1.4% | +25.5% |
| 7 | San Joaquin County, CA | 133,512 | 1.4% | +25.5% |
| 8 | Kern County, CA | 129,250 | 1.4% | +10.8% |
| 9 | Fresno County, CA | 111,876 | 1.2% | +8.8% |
| 10 | Twin Falls County, ID | 108,379 | 1.2% | +20.6% |
| 11 | Jerome County, ID | 103,043 | 1.1% | +47.1% |
| 12 | Maricopa County, AZ | 102,800 | 1.1% | −15.6% |
California's Central Valley supplies most of the top of the table: Tulare, Merced, Stanislaus, Kings, San Joaquin, Kern and Fresno counties. Idaho's Magic Valley follows, with Gooding, Twin Falls and Jerome counties. Weld County, CO is the leading dairy county outside those two states.
The states
California has the most milk cows of any state, followed by Wisconsin and Idaho. Wisconsin's herd is spread across many counties with medium-sized herds, so it places no county in the national top ten despite its rank among the states. That contrast, a few very large dairy counties in the West against many dairy counties in the upper Midwest and the Northeast, is the main geographic fact of US dairying.
Fewer places with published dairy numbers
In 2017, 1,702 counties had a published, non-zero milk cow figure; in 2022 the number was 1,510. A falling count can mean that dairy farming stopped in a county, or that so few farms remained that USDA withheld the figure to avoid disclosing their data. The census does not say which, so this site treats both the same way: a withheld figure is never estimated. Of the 1,283 counties with a published figure in both years, 429 had more milk cows in 2022 than in 2017 and the rest had fewer or the same.
Where herds grew and shrank
Among the 100 counties with the most milk cows in 2017 (and a published 2022 figure), these grew fastest:
| County | 2017 | 2022 | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hartley County, TX | 52,220 | 92,475 | +77.1% |
| Castro County, TX | 44,257 | 68,107 | +53.9% |
| Jerome County, ID | 70,038 | 103,043 | +47.1% |
| Winona County, MN | 24,032 | 33,382 | +38.9% |
| Washington County, NY | 22,978 | 30,511 | +32.8% |
And these shrank the most:
| County | 2017 | 2022 | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Humboldt County, CA | 23,894 | 6,904 | −71.1% |
| Riverside County, CA | 38,033 | 13,475 | −64.6% |
| Chester County, PA | 21,602 | 10,601 | −50.9% |
| Doña Ana County, NM | 32,061 | 16,167 | −49.6% |
| Sonoma County, CA | 33,059 | 19,427 | −41.2% |
Dairy against beef
Beef cows tell the opposite story. US farms had 29,214,479 beef cows at the end of 2022, 3.1 times the dairy herd, but the ten leading beef-cow counties hold only 2.9% of them, against 20.0% for milk cows in the leading dairy counties. Beef herds are spread over 2,156 counties with published figures, led by counties in Florida, Nebraska, Nevada, Oregon, South Dakota and Texas.
Feed follows the cows
Dairy counties also grow the feed. Eight of the ten counties with the most corn for silage appear among the twelve leading dairy counties listed above. On those county pages, silage corn and hay are usually among the largest crops in the "What the fields held" table.
How to read the dairy numbers
Milk cows are counted as head on hand on December 31, 2022, the census reference date for animal inventories. Heifers that have not yet calved are not included; the census reports them with other cattle. A county's milk cow number is therefore a snapshot of its milking herd at the end of the year, not an average over the year. The 2017 figures used for the change column follow the same definition, so the two years compare directly. Where a county's 2022 figure is withheld, its change is not shown, and it does not appear in the lists of gains and losses above. All the counties in those lists had at least one published figure in each census and ranked among the 100 largest dairy counties in 2017, which keeps small herds with large percentage swings out of the comparison.
Milk sales and the rest of the farm economy
Milk from cows brought US farms $52.84 billion in 2022, 9.7% of all farm sales. On a county profile, the sales quilt shows how large the milk patch is next to cattle, grain and other groups, and the "Barns, pens and pastures" table lists the herd with its share of the US total. The milk cows page has the 25 leading counties and the leading states, and the top-counties explorer ranks every county, nationally or within a state.
Sources
USDA National Agricultural Statistics Service, 2022 Census of Agriculture and 2017 Census of Agriculture, county, state and national data (bulk files at www.nass.usda.gov/datasets/). Tables and charts computed by Farm Census.