I wanted to document a milking in pictures for you. This was easier said than done as I needed to bring in people unfamiliar with my camera (Our John and Tall Teenager) to take the actual pictures. And there is no way to set it up. Milking time is milking time! So, this post has taken three days to make. Usually I ONLY post what happened in the last 24 hours. But to get the complete story we needed a couple of reshoots. If I knew I was making a documentary I would have been sure to wear the same thing for each take but ah well. I have to work with Daisy and ignore my camera people so it took us a while.
Before I begin to milk I bring Daisy in off the field to settle in the yards by the milking parlour. Hairy MacLairy always comes too and stations himself under the tree to wait.
The first thing I do is rinse out the bucket and the lines with very hot water. Daisy comes to the door the minute she hears the quiet chug of the little pump. When I am ready I ring her bell and in she comes. Cows are clumsy and being so large they are awkward in a small space so we always work quietly, doing exactly the same thing every day in the same order, so she does not get anxious and hurt herself or me. She has a tether on the wall. And her bin is full of treats – greens from the garden (she loves cabbage) and alfalfa cubes, barley and oats. Not much. Just enough for a treat and to help her get into the routine. She can see cabbage in her feeder! 
After she is settled I clean her teats thoroughly with warm water, anything that touches the cups has to be spotless. She is on the pasture all day so she has not been very dirty so far. 
I turn the pump back on. Then attach the cups. 
The milk immediately starts to flow, at speed, down the line and audibly gushes into the bucket. She relaxes and chomps away.
If I keep my hand on her she is quiet. When we are by ourselves I might sing to her. Porgy and Bess is her favourite score so far. Oklahoma comes a close second. (Both records my parents had when we were kids growing up by the sea, so I know every word of every part!!) We usually don’t get very far as the milking is over in about three minutes. 
When the milk has stopped flowing I cut the suction and take off the cups. Then her teats are annointed with an Iodine wash. It is not pretty but it is best to keep any wee bugs out of the udder. Iodine is old fashioned but no bacteria can live in iodine. Anyone milking cows is fastidious about hygiene. 
I untether her but often she does not notice anyway. I went to untether her last night and discovered that I had not even put the clip on her collar. She had just stood there anyway. 
Watch out for that tail! Then I slap her on her rump and tell her to go outside and she follows me out, I open the big gates again and she and Hairy Maclairy wander back out into the fields. 
So far she is averaging 33 pounds or 16 kg of milk, each milking time. That is 3.8 gallons or 14.5 litres. Twice a day. She gives more in the morning than the evening which is normal.
After the milking, everything is cleaned and sterilised again. It does not take long but it does need to be thorough. I portion out the milk into buckets and bottles, then I carry my share of the milk up to the house, set it to cool and go back out to feed all the animals.
The milk is divided between the calf (Bobby Blanc) , the piglets (The Shush Sisters), the pigs we are fattening (The Plonkers), the bottle fed lamb (Minty), the chickens, the cats and dogs and the house. Big Dog is the one who sits in the barn door and waits for his milk, glaring at any cats who try to jump the queue. Raw milk is a pure whole food and very good for an old dog like Big Dog so he is indulged.
You can see now why I call Daisy the Mother Ship. She is one of the biggest cogs in the farmy wheel. This is why she gets very good care and the best fields. She is our treasure.
Yesterday I made the long awaited cheesecake. Felicity’s Cheesecake made from our own milk. Pseu sent me this recipe a few days ago. It is in the comments section of this post. Which is a wonderful place to be by the way. Your comments are the fuel that this blog runs on. This cheese cake is lovely, lovely, lovely. Thank you Sarah. Here is the original reference. 
AND also yesterday I made Mama’s Lasagne, every lasagne is different of course and this one is made with a layer of tangy home made ricotta mixed with home made yoghurt, rosemary and pepper. Home made noodles made with our own eggs. The sauce is made with one of the last jars of the 2011 summer sauce. This post from last August has my basic lasagne recipe and some images from old Route 66 service stations if you are into that kind of thing … which I am! 
There you are. The cycle.
Good morning. The haymakers field was cut yesterday so we will be baling again this week. There is another pot of yoghurt turning on the cold concrete floor of the cave. Today I will start another hard cheese. I shall gather two gallons of milk from this morning and two from this afternoon and start it tonight using the yoghurt as a starter. You have a lovely day.
I have a surprise for you tomorrow. I hear Daisy calling from Pats Gate! She is early. Gotta go!
celi
The Kitchen's Garden 
89 responses to “Milking a cow from start to finish in pictures.”
I do love reading your posts. I feel like I am there. With less poop to clean up.
Thankfully everyone is in a field now so the earth gets the poop!1 well except for the little piggies but soon they will come out too! c
Brilliant – loved seeing the whole process C. Will our girl be able to produce milk indefinitely?
Love the cheese cake and the lasagne!
A surprise – how exciting…
🙂 Mandy xo
Morning Mandy. She will get pregnant again soon and will be dried up about three months before her next birth for a rest. She has to have a calf every year to keep on milking! c
Thanks C – I have just learnt something new. 🙂 xo
Always love seeing how things function at your place C, especially when it comes to my Daisy. She truly is a treasure. 🙂
Daisy is a true star. Cheesecake and lasagne look excellent.
Love your post. We are also milking again. I didn’t have an exact date for calving but we knew she was close. My husband actually saw her water break when he came home from work and went to check on her! Heifer (yippee) born at 11:45pm Saturday! And in a few days we’ll have drinking milk again. And butter,cheese, yogurt, oh yeah! We hand milk although we have a machine but currently don’t have water in the barn. 😦 We double team with the kids and it doesn’t take long. It is harder to keep the milk clean, though. My hubby is going to look at the first possible property today! 🙂 Hope you have a great day!!!
I have no water in the barn either so i carry three buckets full of hot water out there before each milking. How exciting that you have a lovely new calf and a heifer is always a relief.. AND milk again.. I uncovered my bucket of fresh milk this morning and two roosters flew by in the midst of a battle and blew dust up over everything! I was a wee bit cranky and the pigs were more than happy! c
She is such a good cow! So docile. And definitely earning her keep. 🙂
There’s something just beautiful about the process. Nature at her finest, I think. And to see the milking and take it to lasagne and cheesecake is perfect. Nice and complete! Good morning indeed! Debra
Now that is a cheesecake! I want to reach in and grab that piece. So cool to see and read about the milking process. And I can see why you have to separate the calf from the cow in order to milk, not only because of keeping the cow clean and tracking the milk, but also for the routine and regimen for the cow herself to give the milk…not to mention the iodine factor. So interesting and I had no idea and thanks for the education. Now I’m going to check out your lasagna recipe and the route 66 pics…I think I missed those first time around and I’d love to drive that road…love old things!
we had a grand time, it took us most of a week, but John likes to mosy about and we also stayed in all the old motels which was kind of most of the time.. c
Aww I love how you sing to her! That shows real love and not just using her for her milk. It’s great to see 🙂 And it shows how much you care as well, since you made the routine, and she didn’t even need to be clipped in and still stayed there!
Thank you so much for posting about the process. A cow would deliver way too much milk for us (with our tall teenagers grown up and gone away), but I’ve been kicking the idea of milking a goat around for awhile. I didn’t know what it would entail, how long it would take, etc. Right now, with me still working full-time it isn’t feasible. But the dream lives on. Fueled by your wonderful post. Someday, I will milk a goat — have fresh milk, make cheese,…. So many people commented about how peaceful this post is and I have to agree. Peaceful and contented. I could feel Daisy’s contentment. Just wonderful.
The milking and cleaning up takes about 30 minutes and because she is on pasture it really does not take that long to do the chores. Once they are milking you kind have to wait for them to tail off, then you dry them up. It looks like Daisy is going to be a strong long milker as long as we keep her good and healthy. Goats would be a good option and i adore goats cheese.. c
Thank you for a wonderful post, very informative!
are you at your new place yet? c
will be there on Saturday 😉
This was so cool, c! When we had milk goats, we milked by hand (hard to justify a milker with only 3 or 4 does milking) My hands were too large to do the actual milking, so Heather and the kids (oops children) did it.
morning ted, there is something lovely about milking your own animals, old.. c
Thank you, Celie, for a lovely read and for the pictures of YOU for a change.
morning Viv, as you can imagine, I tend not to have photos of myself because it feels muddy. It kind of changes what the blog is about. But the milking is all about a kind of symbiotic relationship between the animal and her human. So I wanted to show how we worked together.. c
Lve your post and reading all aboutnthe whole process. I had no idea one cow would give so much milk! Your lasagna and cheesecake look delicious!
The cheesecake looks wonderful. 🙂