From Moo to You: Milking the Cows

While you can buy milk at the grocery store it does not appear there magically.  Milk comes from cows on dairy farms, many of which are just like mine.

Our cows are milked two times a day; once early in the morning and once in the mid-afternoon.  After they've had some hay and silage to eat we walk them to the holding area behind the dairy barn.  The cows waiting to be milked stay there and those that have been milked can then walk back out to the feeding areas.

The cows enter the barn five at a time on one side.  While one group is being milked the other side is being prepped for milking.  The milkers are then put on the cow and the milk flows through the hoses and into the pipeline.



From there the it goes into our milk tank for storage.  The milk is stirred and kept cold until the milk truck comes to pick it up and take it to a processing plant.  Then it is bottled or made into other delicious dairy treats.   All of our equipment is washed after each milking. The tank is also cleaned after each pick up.

After being milked the cows have hay and fresh silage waiting on them to eat.  Then they are free to roam out on the pasture field until the next milking.