The greatest possible attention must be paid to the Dairy. Cleanliness being the primary object, all the utensils, shelves, and the floor, should be kept perfectly neat, and cold water should be frequently thrown over it.—There should be shutters to the Dairy to keep out the sun and hot air.
The cows should be milked at a regular and early hour, and their udders should be perfectly emptied, else the quantity given will be diminished. When you go to the cow, take with you, cold water and a sponge, and wash each cow’s udder; bathe it well with cold water, both in winter and summer, as that braces them and repels heat. But, if any cow has sore teats, let them be soaked in warm water twice a day, and either dressed with soft ointment, or bathed with spirits and water. In either case, the milk should be given to the pigs.
When the milk is brought into the Dairy, it should be strained and emptied into clean pans, immediately, in winter, but not till cool, in summer. Suffer no one to milk the cows but yourself, as much depends on their being dripped quite clean, particularly after a calf is taken away.
The quantity of milk given by cows, will be different according to their breed, health, pasturage, the length of time from calving, and other circumstances. Change of pasturage will tend to increase the quantity.
In good pastures, the average of each cow will be about three gallons a day from Lady-day to Michaelmas; and thence to Christmas, one gallon a day.
Cows will be profitable yielders of milk, to fourteen or fifteen years of age, if of a good breed. They should be fed well two or three weeks before calving, which will increase the quantity of milk. In gentlemen’s Dairies, more attention is paid to the beauty and size of cows, than to their produce.
It is absolutely necessary that the cows should be kept feeding whilst you are milking them.
It should be contrived that cows kept for a gentleman’s family, should calve at different seasons, and, particularly, that one or two should calve in August or September, to insure a supply of milk in winter.
When there is not a great demand for cream in the family, the Dairy-maid will take that opportunity to provide for the winter store. She should keep a regular weekly account of the quantity of milk given by each cow, and the quantity of butter she pots. The average of a good fair Dairy cow, during several months after calving, will be seven pounds of butter a week, and from three to five gallons of milk per day; afterwards, a weekly average of three or four pounds of butter, from barely half that quantity of milk. On an average, three gallons of good milk, will yield one pound of butter. The annual consumption of a good cow, turned to grass, is from an acre to an acre and a half in the summer, and from a ton to a ton and a half of hay, in the winter. Each cow should be allowed two pecks of carrots per day. The grass, if cut and carried to the cows green, will economize full one-third.
Alderney cows yield rich milk, upon less food, than larger cows, but are seldom large milkers, and are particularly scanty of produce in the winter.