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 ManagementFlint, Charles Louis
Science
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
Flint, Charles Louis
Cows; Dairying
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.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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