My First Milking and Other Stories

Despite growing up in rural areas of Devon and Somerset, I had never milked a cow before yesterday. Was I nervous? Not really, I was actually rather excited and having watched the process on Monday I was ready to get stuck in.

I doubt that any of my readers are dairy farmers (although this is the internet so who knows?), so I'll briefly explain the milking process at the farm I'm staying at. The dairy is a '22-a-side herringbone dairy'. This means that a football match worth of cows file into grain filled pens on one side of a shed, then once the milking is underway another 22 are let into the opposite side. When one side is finished, the gates are opened allowing the milked cows out and another 22 in to take their place. The milking is done electronically: the farmer attaches one suction cup to each teat and the machine withdraws milk until the udder is drained, then releases the suction causing the cups to drop off the udder. Thanks to the modern equipment, the 140 or so cows that are currently being milked can be knocked off by two quick workers in as little as 45 minutes. The cattle are milked twice a day, once at 7am and again at around 3-4pm.
It was yesterday afternoon that I made my debut. I hit the 'start' button, slowly attached one suction cup, then another, fumbled a bit with the third before guiding it on, and the fourth went on easy. And just like that my I had milked my first cow. Then I moved onto the next.

Milking cows is not complicated, but there are many variables that can make the task tricky or require special attention, therefore great concentration is required. Some of the bigger cows have giant teats which are hard to get the suction cups onto. Some cows keep their legs close together, limiting access to their udders. Some cows jerk and stomp requiring steady hands (there is no danger of being hurt by the animals as a well placed metal bar prevents them from kicking back). Some cows have low udders that hang close to the ground, bringing up the challenge of attaching one cup without letting the others touch the floor and thus pick up dirt. Some cows have muddy teats that need cleaning before you can milk them. Some cows will kick off the cups prematurely, so you have to carefully check whether each udder has been fully milked. Lastly, some cows are marked with blue, indicating that they are on antibiotics. Their milk is contaminated and must be diverted into a separate bucket, if it isn't and flows into the main drum then the entire tankful must be discarded, which is thousands of dollars worth of milk. Therefore I was more worried about making this grave error than the usual milking concern - the cow shitting or pissing all over your head. I have accepted that this will happen to me at least once (possibly twice - once solid, once fluid), so am mentally prepared and do not fear the faeces.

Today, I was milking faster and doing my best to handle the variables. The afternoon session saw my farmer host leave myself and my fellow German helper alone in the dairy. The German lad is somewhat shy and lacking in confidence, so although he has been here two weeks already I had to take the lead and try to ensure the process went smoothly. It was more than I expected on only my third day as a farmer, but I think we handled the job well and there were no disasters. I look forward to becoming increasingly proficient at milking over the next few weeks.

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Over the past two days I have witnessed the artificial insemination of three cows. Apologies for the crude language, but there are no better ways to describe the process than the farmer ramming one arm up the cow's arse while using the other to poke around the animal's inners with a long, semen containing needle-like device. My host breeds all his cows this way due to the advantage of being able to pick and choose genetics from all over the world. If you're hoping for a blog post detailing my own hand-up-bovine-bottom experience then you'll be disappointed - this is a task I won't be asked to do.

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Today I fell victim to a Northern Victoria farmer practical joke. My host's mates had smothered two of his gate padlocks with a copious amount of grease, which was unavoidably transferred onto my hands when I had to open the gates.

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There are three tiny and beyond adorable six week old puppies on the farm. Fantastically, one of my jobs is to play with them whenever I have a spare five minutes, so they are used to human contact by the time they are sold. Messing around with these little fellas has replaced furniture destroying as the most awesome task I've been handed in Australia so far.

Can I keep him?