As with crops, ranching and livestock are significant contributors to the agricultural climate of Nye County. Nye County has cattle ranches and four dairies as well.

The inventory of cattle and calves in Nye County has increased steadily from 12,000 head in 1995 to approximately 36,000 in 2006.
  View Inventory of Cattle & Calves in an Excel graph
  View Inventory of Cattle & Calves in PDF

Nye County has four dairies: the Amargosa Dairy, Ponderosa Dairy, and Moapa Dairy are located in the Amargosa Valley, and the Pahrump Dairy is located in Pahrump. In 2005, Nye County dairies had 12,000 milk cows with an average annual production of 22,200 pounds of milk (approximately 2,581 gallons) per cow. This comes to an annual production of 266,000,000 pounds of milk (or 30,930,233 gallons). A gallon of milk weighs approximately 8.6 pounds. The amount of milk cows in the county has increased substantially over the past ten years from approximately 5,500 in 1995 to 12,000 in 2005. The sharp increase in 2004 was due to the move of the Moapa Dairy from Clark County to Nye County.

Year	Annual Pounds of Milk Per Cow	Annual Gallons of Milk Per Cow	Total Annual Milk Production in Thousand Pounds	Total Annual Milk Production in Thousand Gallons	Annual Average Milk Cows
1995	18,000	2,093	99,000	11,512	5,500
1996	19,300	2,244	144,750	16,831	7,500
1997	18,800	2,186	141,000	16,395	7,500
1998	19,100	2,221	143,250	16,657	7,500
1999	17,934	2,085	141,680	16,474	7,900
2000	19,200	2,233	153,600	17,860	8,000
2001	19,400	2,256	162,960	18,949	8,400
2002	20,500	2,384	176,300	20,500	8,600
2003	19,600	2,279	165,424	19,235	8,440
2004	20,500	2,384	254,200	29,558	12,400
2005	22,200	2,581	266,000	30,930	12,000

The four dairies in Nye County produce approximately 50% of the state total of milk with an annual dollar value of approximately $37,000,000. Together they employ 200 workers.

Source: All agriculture information was obtained from the U.S. Dept. of Agriculture - National Agricultural Statistics Service, the Nevada State Dairy Commission, and the Ponderosa Dairy.