# Questions with exact answers

Each question below was asked through the MCP endpoint, of the curated tools, and each answer was checked against a sum computed directly from MGAP's CSV files by a separate program that shares no code with the tools. They agreed to the animal. If a tool ever disagrees with these numbers for the same year, believe neither, and tell us.

## How many dairy cows were there in Florida in 2025?

**100,116** by MGAP's dairy measure (PD+PF: 79,048 milking cows and 21,068 dry cows), or **103,472** by DICOSE's traditional count (PD+AD). Florida is department 7; dairy cattle are species 11; milking and dry cows are its categories 2 and 3.

```
cow_herd  species: "dairy cattle"  department: "Florida"  categories: ["2", "3"]  year: 2025
```

The answer names its source rows (`datosanimalesdetallados.csv`), both measures, and which one MGAP uses for dairy. The two differ because some cows graze on other people's land; see *Known caveats*.

## How many cattle did Uruguay have?

**12,265,269** in 2025 and **12,138,148** in 2024 (beef and dairy cattle together, PD+AD): up 127,121. In 2025, 11,583,321 were beef cattle and 681,948 dairy cattle.

```
cow_rank  metric: "bovine_count"  year: 2025  limit: 19      (sum the 19 departments)
```

## Which department has the most cattle?

**Florida**, with 1,117,097 in 2025 (1,095,226 in 2024). Then Tacuarembó (1,061,136) and Durazno (952,171). In 2024 the third was Cerro Largo.

```
cow_rank  metric: "bovine_count"  year: 2025  limit: 3
```

## How many cattle are there in Montevideo?

**2,736** in 2025 (2,699 in 2024). Montevideo is the capital and the smallest department, and it is not empty of cows.

```
cow_area_profile  department: "Montevideo"  year: 2025
```

## How many sheep?

**4,799,066** in 2025, down from **5,420,661** in 2024: 621,595 fewer, a fall of 11.5% in one year.

```
cow_rank  metric: "ovine_count"  year: 2025  limit: 19      (sum the 19 departments)
cow_compare  years: [2024, 2025]  metrics: ["ovine_count"]
```

## Where is the milk?

**Florida** again: 608,116,907 litres declared for 2025, of 2,298,402,318 nationally. Then San José (520,036,099) and Colonia (441,387,725).

```
cow_rank  metric: "milk_liters"  year: 2025  limit: 3
```

## Questions the tools refuse

- *How many cows in 2019?* Refused: the loaded years are 2024 and 2025.
- *How many cows in "Floridaa"?* Refused, with the list of the 19 departments.
- *Rank departments with `filters: {department: "7"}`?* Refused: `cow_rank` takes no `filters`, and a filter silently ignored would be a wrong answer that looks right.
- *A SPARQL query that joins every observation to every other?* Stopped at its deadline (10 seconds on the public endpoint, at most 1,000 rows), and the answer says it was stopped. The curated tools have a budget of their own (20 seconds) and say the same when they run out of it.

---

*This guide is by Sophia Labs, under CC BY 4.0. The data it describes is MGAP's, under the Licencia de Datos Abiertos – Uruguay.*

The cow-tools guide, The guide: https://cow-tools.sophia-labs.com/guide/questions-with-exact-answers/ (this page for people) · the whole guide: https://cow-tools.sophia-labs.com/guide/index.md · in Sophia: the graph `cow-tools-guide`, document `questions-with-exact-answers` (MCP `read_document` at https://cow-tools.sophia-labs.com/mcp). CC BY 4.0, credit "cow-tools, Sophia Labs".