The milk factory

Cows are just as curious as cats

Story # 121, O. T.       

            I was very lucky to get an inside tour of a major dairy operation.  Katie works there to help milk 900 cows and feed hundreds of calves.  It is at a scale that no Farmer every imagined 50 years ago.  My Dad milked, at most, 24 cows twice a day.  Here, it’s 900 cows, three times a day, in continuous rotating shifts.

            Two workers manage the elaborate milking system which handles 40 cows at a time.  When they are milked and turned out, another 40 walk in for their turn.  Each cow is identified and production and health records are monitored by computer.

            The volume of milk requires that three milk tanker trucks are on standby with the on-site cooling system pumping milk directly into them. From there, a milk hauling service trucks them to milk processing plants.

            Calves are fed pasteurized milk which is produced on site at the farm.

            I support the right of Farmers to sell raw milk.  I drank it for my first 17 years.  But there is a clue here.  If the management of very valuable calves is to feed pasteurized milk, why would any human want to feed raw milk to their family?

            Milk is very cheap food.  Thank a Farmer for continuously getting it to your store and risking millions of dollars on a milk factory. 

                                                                           

All you can eat silage

40 cows milked at once