Milch Cows and Dairy Farming / Comprising the Breeds, Breeding, and Management, in Health and Disease, of Dairy and Other Stock, the Selection of Milch Cows, with a Full Explanation of Guenon's Method; The Culture of Forage Plants, and the Production of Milk, Butter, and Cheese: Embodying the Most Recent Improvements, and Adapted to Farming in the United States and British Provinces. With a Treatise upon the Dairy Husbandry of Holland; To Which Is Added Horsfall's System of Dairy Management

by Charles Louis Flint

Milking.

—The manner of milking exerts a more powerful and lasting influence on the productiveness of the cow than most farmers are aware of. That a slow and careless milker soon dries up the best of cows, every practical farmer and dairyman knows; but a careful examination of the beautiful structure of the udder will serve further to explain the proper mode of milking, to obtain and keep up the largest yield. “The udder of a cow,” says a writer in the Rural Cyclopædia, “is a unique mass, composed of two symmetrical parts, simply united to each other by a cellular tissue, lax, and very abundant; and each of these parts comprises two divisions or quarters, which consist of many small granules, and are connected together by a compact laminous tissue; and from each quarter proceed systems of ducts, which form successive unions and confluences, somewhat in the manner of the many affluents of a large river, until they terminate in one grand excretory canal, which passes down through the elongated mammillary body called the teat. Its lactiferous or milk tubes, however, do not, as might be supposed, proceed exactly from smaller to larger ducts by a gradual and regular enlargement, because it would not have been proper that the secretion of milk should escape as it was formed; and therefore we find an apparatus adapted for the purpose of retaining it for a proper time. This apparatus is to be found both in the teat and in the internal construction of the udder. The teat resembles a funnel in shape, and somewhat in office; and it is possessed of a considerable degree of elasticity. It seems formed principally of the cutis, with some muscular fibres, and it is covered on the outside by cuticle, like every other part of the body; but the cuticle here not only covers the exterior, but also turns upwards, and lines the inside of the extremity of the teat, as far as it is contracted, and there terminates by a frilled edge, the rest of the interior of the teats and ducts being lined by mucous membrane. But, as the udder in most animals is attached in a pendulous manner to the body, and as the weight of the column of fluid would press with a force which would, in every case, overcome the resistance of the contractions of the extremity, or prove oppressive to the teat, there is in the internal arrangement of the udder a provision made to obviate this difficulty. The various ducts, as they are united, do not become gradually enlarged so as to admit the ready flow of milk in a continual stream to the teat, but are so arranged as to take off, in a great measure, the extreme pressure to which the teat would be otherwise exposed. Each main duct, as it enters into another, has a contraction produced, by which a kind of valvular apparatus is formed in such a manner as to become pouches or sacks, capable of containing the great body of the milk. In consequence of this arrangement, it is necessary that a kind of movement upwards, or lift, should be given to the udder before the teat is drawn, to force out the milk; and by this lift the milk is displaced from these pouches, and escapes into the teat, and is then easily squeezed out; while the contractions, or pouches, at the same time resist, in a certain degree, the return or reflux of the displaced milk.”

The first requisite of a good milker is, of course, the utmost cleanliness. Without this, the milk is unendurable. The udder should, therefore, be carefully cleaned before the milking commences. The milker may begin gradually and gently, but should steadily increase the rapidity of the operation till the udder is emptied, using a pail sufficiently large to hold all, without the necessity of changing. Cows are very sensitive, and the pail cannot be changed, nor can the milker stop or rise during the process of milking, without leading the cow more or less to withhold her milk. The utmost care should be taken to strip to the last drop, and to do it rapidly, and not in a slow and negligent manner, which is sure to have its effect on the yield of the cow. If any milk is left, it is reabsorbed into the system, or else becomes caked, and diminishes the tendency to secrete a full quantity afterwards. Milking as dry as possible is especially necessary with young cows with their first calf, as the mode of milking, and the length of time to which they can be made to hold out, will have very much to do with their milking qualities as long as they live.

At the age of two or three years the milky glands have not become fully developed, and their largest development will depend very greatly upon the management after the first calf. Cows should have, therefore, the most milk-producing food; be treated with constant gentleness; never struck, or spoken harshly to, but coaxed and caressed; and in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred they will grow up gentle and quiet. But harshness is worse than useless. Nothing does so much to dry a cow up, especially a young cow.

The longer the young cow, with her first, and second calf, can be made to hold out, the more surely will this habit be fixed upon her. Stop milking her four months before the next calf, and it will be difficult to make her hold out to within four or six weeks of the time of calving afterwards. Induce her, if possible, by moist and succulent food, and by careful milking, to hold out even up to the time of calving, if you desire to milk her so long, and this habit will be likely to be fixed upon her for life. But do not expect to obtain the full yield of a cow the first year after calving. Some of the very best cows are slow to develop their best qualities; and no cow reaches her prime till the age of five or six years.

The extreme importance of care and attention to these points cannot be over-estimated. The wild cows grazing on the plains of South America are said to give only about three or four quarts a day at the height of the flow; and many an owner of large herds in Texas, it is said, has too little milk for family use, and sometimes receives his supply of butter from the New York market. There is, therefore, a constant tendency to dry up in milch cows; and it must be guarded against with special care, till the habit of yielding a large quantity, and yielding it long, becomes fixed in the young animal, when, with proper care, it may easily be kept up.

If gentle and mild treatment is observed and persevered in, the operation of milking appears to be one of pleasure to the animal, as it undoubtedly is; but if an opposite course is pursued,—if, at every restless movement, caused, perhaps, by pressing a sore teat, the animal is harshly spoken to,—she will be likely to learn to kick as a habit, and it will be difficult to overcome it ever afterwards. To induce quiet and readiness to give down the milk freely, it is better that the cow should be fed at milking-time with cut feed, or roots, placed within her easy reach.

I have never practised milking more than twice a day, because in spring and summer other farm-work was too pressing to allow of it; but there is no doubt that, for some weeks after calving, and in the height, of the flow, the cows ought, if possible, to be milked regularly three times a day—at early morning, noon, and night. Every practical dairyman knows that cows thus milked give a larger quantity of milk than if milked only twice, though it may not be quite so rich; and in young cows, no doubt, it has a tendency to promote the development of the udder and milk-veins. A frequent milking stimulates an increased secretion, therefore, and ought never to be neglected in the milk-dairy, either in the case of young cows or very large milkers, at the height of the flow, which will ordinarily be for two or three months after calving.

The charge of this branch of the dairy should generally be intrusted to women. They are more gentle and winning than men. The same person should milk the same cow regularly, and not change from one to another, unless there are special reasons for it.

There being a wide difference in the quality as well as in the quantity of milk of different cows, no dairyman should neglect to test the milk of each new addition to his dairy stock, whether it be an animal of his own raising or one brought from abroad. A lactometer is a very convenient instrument here; but any one can set the milk of each cow separately at first, and give it a fair and full trial, when the difference will be found to be great. Economy will dictate that the cows least adapted to the purpose should be disposed of, and their place supplied by better ones.