Milking cows in winter?

In the US some farms are seasonal and others milk all year round.

Modern, with-it cows go inside the barn in the winter. They are milked by milking machines. In the old days, if you only had one or two cows, they'd go into the barn in the winter and maybe outside in the summer.

Moo! Moo!

http://classes.ansci.uiuc.edu/ansc438/Mastitis/milkmachine.html

If you milk a cow in winter, ice cream comes out.

I'm beginning to see a theme to your posts.

dreamsofnever said:

This might or might not be a dumb question.

In my WIP, I've just realized that I have my characters milk cows in the winter.

As I am pretty clueless about the day to day life of a farmer, and about the care of cows...

How realistic is this? Do farmers milk their cows in the winter?


Why no, I'm not from Wisconsin, the dairy state. If I was, I would/should know this... (or maybe I am and have no excuse. )

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Fall veal (for the cow) means winter milking (for the farmer).

I just got a rep point assuring me brown cows give chocolate ice cream, so ner ner ner ner ner. I was right.

scarletpeaches said:

I just got a rep point assuring me brown cows give chocolate ice cream, so ner ner ner ner ner. I was right.

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How would people have had milk for their families and cooking in the old days if they didn't milk during the winter? Puma

They'd walk 27km uphill both ways to the shop.

I'd like to know what the hell the first guy to milk a cow thought he was doing.

Puma said:

How would people have had milk for their families and cooking in the old days if they didn't milk during the winter? Puma

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sour cream

aka stroganoff

scarletpeaches said:

I'd like to know what the hell the first guy to milk a cow thought he was doing.

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Don't worry Mrs Aurauch! I didn't eat your calf and stick its skin on my head just to fool you or just to get something to eat when the sun is so low that I can't even see it...No, I'm your calf...just let me suck on...


...Not going to continue...

In the 1940s and '50s, I lived on a farm near Big Timber, Montana. My grandfather, two uncles, and I milked four or five Holstein cows morning and evening every day. We did not have milking machines.

We fed whole milk to motherless calves and lambs. We separated leftover milk, sold the cream in town, drank skim milk ourselves, and fed any left over skim milk to hogs.

Our stone barn wasn't heated, but was at least ten degrees warmer inside than out.

We fed all our cattle and sheep alfalfa hay daily during winter, and milk cows got extra hay and a half gallon ration of ground oats or corn at each milking.

During severe cold, milk cows bedded in the barn, and other animals took shelter in sheds.

For winter milking, think Bag Balm, chapped hands, chapped teats, and if you don't wear long johns, that delightful breeze that blows down your butt from bending over.

And if the weather is cold enough, the frozen cow shit in the tail hitting you in the face.

Best of luck,

Jim Clark-Dawe

You're quite welcome.

I still have a 10-ounce green cube can of Vermont's original Bag Balm on hand. If ever there was a miracle salve for hands, feet, elbows, or any cracked skin, Bag Balm is it.

As for dirty tails, after milk cows filed into their stalls and were munching contentedly, one of my jobs was to trim tails and wash extremities, especially udders, before milking began.

Anyone who's milked remembers this ritual: Twice daily, barn cats were paid with a pan of fresh warm milk for mousing services. However, some couldn't wait and lined up for direct squirts of milk into open mouths.

Actually a lot of homestead would not have milked during the winter, because they would not have been able to feed a lactating cow over the winter and she would have died. Foods, including milk, used to be seasonal.

Ever think about why butchering was a fall ritual? Puma

Chase said:

Anyone who's milked remembers this ritual: Twice daily, barn cats were paid with a pan of fresh warm milk for mousing services. However, some couldn't wait and lined up for direct squirts of milk into open mouths.

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Hah! One of my friends had a cat that did this. She'd push in front of the other cats and always get the milk!

If a farm has cows in winter, they need to be milked. If your book is set in current times, it might be useful to know that farms are growing in size worldwide, but still not catching the size of the US 'super farms'. Cows generally produce less milk in winter and more in the warmer months when they can graze on fresh grass and live a healthier lifestyle (if you've ever seen cows come out of a shed at the end of spending a whole winter inside, it's really lovely and very obvious they enjoy the outdoors).

At the moment, the number of cows in the US is being reduced through a series of cow culls due to dairy commodity prices being the lowest for a long time, causing excess stock which leads to longer-term deflated prices. This affects the farmers because dairy companies won't offer a price high enough to cover the cost of producing the milk, so their only option is to reduce cow numbers to stabilise the market and hopefully watch the prices rise as demand returns.

Guess which industry I work in :O)

It depends on things like when and where your story is set. Here in Texas, winter grasses abound and people have traditionally milked through the winter. My mother moved here from Maine and wondered where all the barns were. Where did the cows go at night? My dad looked at her in surprise. Why would anyone put up the cows at night?

Region matters.


And Bag Balm is da bomb.

My dad is a dairy farmer in Ontario Canada. I was officially farming with him until my chauvinist Grandfather got tired of me being in the barn and trying to suggest anything he hadn't thought of (should mention that he's physically unable to do most barn chores due to his age and health, so if it wasn't for my dad, he wouldn't be farming now at all).

We milk Holstein cows, the big, black and white spotted kind.

Dairy farmers try to get their cows to milk for 305 days a year. An individual cow can't be milked year round, because she needs to be 'dry' before she has another calf.

A cow's pregnancy lasts for nine months.

When a heifer (female) calf is born, she is fed milk for 3-6 months, depending on the farm. People used to think that more milk was better, but now we tend to agree that 3 months is long enough. The calf is also fed grain and hay as soon as she will eat it.

If she is of a sufficient size (this depends on the breed of cow) at the age of 15 months, she'll be bred. If not, she'll wait until she is big enough. Farmers usually like their heifers to calve when they're about 24 months of age.

After calving, she will ideally milk for 305 days (give or take), then she will be 'dried off' because she will be pregnant again, and will be given about eight weeks off.

After the eight weeks, she'll calve again and be back in business.

Henceforth, one cow won't milk all year, but depending on when she calved, she might milk in the winter.

Since people expect milk on the table year round, farmers have to milk cows year round. Because they have multiple cows (we for instance have 41 milking cows and are a very small farm), this is easy to do because the cows calve at different times so the majority of the herd is always milking.

Oh, and a cow's length of milking is called a 'lactation'.

dreamsofnever said:

It's a small hobby farm in Germany, set in the present. I'm writing it so they have a heated (or at least insulated) barn. Does that sound plausible? (to anyone who knows)

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In New England I've never seen an insulated or heated barn, although the milking room may be. The cows are not bothered by the cold temperatures. The consideration is that they have to eat to generate heat (as do all warm-blooded animals). The more they have to generate for heat, the less energy they can put into milk.

A herd of cows in a barn will generate a fair amount of heat and many barns do not freeze during the winter.

Make the barn too warm would be expensive and also would be bad for the animals' health. The increased temperature can lead to a rise in breathing problems. Cows are designed to live in the open, not crowded places, and just like in schools, one cow's disease will spread throughout the herd.

The humans just learn to deal with the cold.

Best of luck,

Jim Clark-Dawe