THE TRYING & BUYING OF YOUR FIRST COW

(Page 6 of 9)

February/March 1992
By Lisa Faulkner 
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Handling Fresh Milk

Handling the milk in a manner that assures cleanliness is also very important. You will need to wash and scald all your milking utensils, including the milk bucket, each time you use them. Do not use a towel to dry the bucket after washing—hang it upside down on a rack to allow the air to get to it. We found that a seamless stainless steel bucket with a cover works best because it has no cracks for the bacteria to hide in. The cover is necessary to keep the empty bucket clean while you're on the way to milk and to keep din and bugs at bay afterwards.

AFTER MILKING, TAKE THE BOUNTY directly to the house, strain though a filter, then refrigerate. We keep our milk in gallon glass jars that were originally filled with mayonnaise, pickles, or mustard (almost any restaurant will have these and they'll usually let them go for a dollar or less each). Filters are available from the same place where you found the sanitizer and are simply placed in a large strainer and positioned over the gallon jars before you pour the milk into them.

Now, with any luck, you're going to have from four to six gallons (that's 16 to 24 quarts, folks!) in your fridge and no room for anything else. Don't panic! If you've got enough people in your tribe (or enough neighbors and friends) then most of it will go the way of good milk the world over. Don't forget that you now have plenty of supplies for butter, ice cream, cottage cheese, hard cheese, yogurt, and custards. If you still find that there is considerable excess, now might be a great time to have some pigs and/or chickens around the home: They can live off a mixture of dairy and other products.

Controlling Your Cow: Stanchions and Halters

Perhaps you're still wondering how you get the cow to stick around while you do all that cleaning and milking twice a day. Our cow was accustomed to milking in a stanchion—the most common way of controlling a milk cow—and chances are that yours will be as well. Because most folks feed their cows at milking time, a cow is usually cooperative about going into the stanchion.

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