FROM MILK PAIL TO SUPPER TABLE

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Part III in a series on dairy cow care by mother's homestead veterinarian;

Randy Kidd

In MOTHER NOS. 70 and 71, I presented "ten commandments" to help you raise your own healthy backyard dairy cow. And now that the basic methods of feeding and caring for of Bossie have been explained, it's time to turn our attention to the task of safeguarding the "liquid assets" produced by the bovine boarder.

CLEANLINESS IS THE KEY

To insure that your homegrown dairy products are tasty and safe to eat and drink, you should follow several simple principles of milk handling. The first (and most important) rule is to make certain the liquid doesn't become contaminated after it leaves the mammary gland. The best way to assure this is to keep the milking equipment and building scrupulously clean.

[1] Maintain a spotless milking area. You might want to paint the enclosure white, so you'll be better able to see—and eliminate—fly specks or spots of fecal matter.

[2] Keep strong odors out of the milking and milk storage areas.

[3] Use only sanitized pans, strainers, and bottles.

[4] Don't give your dairy animal onions, silage, cabbage, moldy grains and hay, or any other feed that can impart an "off" flavor to the milk.

[5] Make certain the beast herself is clean. Keep the hair around and above the mammary gland clipped.

[6] Always scrub your hands before you set to work.

[7] Clean the udder prior to milking. Use a paper towel soaked in a disinfectant solution to wash off any mud and dirt, then throw that towel away. Next, clean each teat in a dip cup filled with fresh disinfectant solution. (The containers and cleaning liquids can be purchased from farm suppliers or feed stores.)

[8] Finally, be sure that the milk itself is clean. Always strip the first three or four streams into a black cup and swirl the liquid around to look for the small chunks or clumps that can indicate mastitis (an inflammation or infection of the mammary gland).

KEEP A READY ROUTINE

There's more than one reason for washing your animals' udders carefully. Milk flow is brought on by the hormone oxytocin, the production of which is stimulated by massaging the udder and performing other premilking routines that the animal is accustomed to . . . such as (noisily) scrubbing out the milk pail.

It'll take from 45 to 90 seconds after the stimulation begins to produce a milk flow, and the hormone's effect lasts only eight minutes. The milking process should thus be finished within little more than eight minutes after you wash Bossie's udder.

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