I never thought that I’d be the kind of person who liked cows. When I first started the dairy cattle technology class my thought on cows was “Oh, cool, they’re big and there. They make milk.” But after a few weeks of working with these large animals, my tune changed. To me, the cows are like giant dogs, each with their own vibrant personality and quirks. Smiling starts early. Ideally, we want to start sanitizing the system at four so that we can start milking at four thirty. Milking has a certain rhythm to it and a pattern. Milking also involves steps. The first step is the predip which is a blue disinfectant that helps remove the bacteria on and around the teat. Then you strip the cow by gently grabbing the teat and pinching at the top and rolling your finger down until milk comes out. You do this about five times for each teat. This is so that you can check how the milk looks, and to help stimulate milk let down. After you put more predip on and wait for thirty second. After thirty seconds, you wipe off the dip with a paper towel and attach the milking machine to the cow. After the cow is all milked out, which can take anywhere from ten to twenty or so minutes, you apply the post dip which is a think brown substance which helps keep bacteria away from the now open teat. Milking takes about an hour or so. Of course, morning times involves more than just milking the cows. It also involves feeding the calves, cleaning out their pens and making sure the calf barn is tidy and clean. Calves are feed which a bottle for the first week or two before they are trained to drink the milk from a bucket. The calves themselves are like giant puppies. We also make sure our livestock barn is clean. The livestock barn is where our pregnant cows that aren’t lactating live, our young calves that are too big for the calf barn and our heifers live. Taking care of the cows takes a lot of work to make sure that things run smoothly but to me, it is a lot of fun.
0 Comments
Your comment will be posted after it is approved.
Leave a Reply. |
Archives
March 2022
Categories |