19 July 2025, in Finland

Pennsylvania is a big dairy farming state, ranked 8th in the U.S. in dairy production, yet for all the cows I’ve seen grazing Pennsylvania fields I’d never seen one wearing an udder support bra until I visited Finland eight years ago. Obviously this cow has a very large udder so she benefits in several ways.

In 1963 Dutch veterinarian, Evert J.S. Bron, invented a “cow bra” for animals with large udders designed to …

• prevent damage or further elongation of the suspensory ligaments in large udders
• prevent mastitis (inflammation of the udder)
• prevent the cow from stepping on its teats when it stands up and/or dragging them on the ground because they hang so low.

Siberian and Nordic dairy farmers sometimes cover cow udders in winter to keep them warm so it wasn’t a stretch for a Finnish dairy farmer to adopt the support net. It’s even been adopted at a farm in Brazil after the Brazilian manager visited Iceland. See Dairy Global: Unique udder support method in the spotlight.

Support is also available in the U.S.

p.s. The breed of cow pictured at top is the Swedish red-and-white.