Milking a Cow
A cow is ready to be milked when her udder is full. The farmer has some flexibility when making a schedule of cow milking times. Usually, cows are milked in the early morning and again in the late afternoon. It is possible to milk a cow by hand. However, milking a whole herd of cows twice a day in this manner would take a great deal of time and energy
Today, most farmers use milking machines that are faster and cleaner, and the cows are milked in a room called the milking parlor. The farmer brings the first round of cows in to be milked, usually around 5 cows, and first cleans the teats with an iodine and water solution. A milking machine has four rubber lined cups that fit over each of the cow's teats and pump the milk into a milk tank. The action of the cups imitates the sucking of a calf so that it does not hurt the cow. Once the collecting tank is full, the milk travels by a vacuum pipeline to a refrigerated storage tank in another room until it is collected . When milk first comes out of a cow, it is warm and must be cooled and kept at below 40 degrees F in a cooling tank or else it will spoil.
- It would take you 1 hour to milk six cows by hand. However, with a milking machine, you could milk 100 cows in the same time.
- It takes each cow about 4 to 5 minutes to milk.
- Cows are creatures of habit, meaning that they like going about things in a routine manner. In fact, farmers usually milk their cows in the same order during each milking to save the cows confusion and anxiety.