I show up at the farm around seven with my big thermos of coffee and lots of layers of clothing. The goats are loafing around the barn, most are laying down, some are eating hay, some are being nursed by their kids. I turn on the lights in the barn and the dairy and say hi to the goats. I walk around to the milking parlor and change out of my big rubber boots into a sexy pair of crocs and fill the sink with a diluted bleach water solution. I then turn on the motor or "pump", the air injector and pulsation control which circulates the bleach water through the mechanized milking system and back into the sink where it began.
 |
| Just to give you an idea of what I mean by "inflations" |
By this point I wheel the cart out of the room where the sink and bulk tank live (where shoes must always be clean because it is adjacent to the cheese-making room). I put my boots back on, close the valves that lead to the 4 sets of inflations and turn the large metal lever that directs the liquid in the pipes (so rather than pumping liquid from the empty sink into the bulk tank, the milk is pumped through the pipes) . I turn the pump back on. I put the filter in to catch any stray hairs that might sneak their way into the milk. I fill a bucket with a solution of hot water and iodine. I fill the trough with grain so the goats have something to eat while they get milked. Finally it is time to milk. About half an hour has passed. Music is usually playing in the milking parlor, the goats don't seem to mind.
At this point I go out and close a large gate that separates the barn and covered "loafing area" where the goats are hanging out, from the pasture. This way, when the goats are finished being milked and I let them out the second of the two gates in the milking parlor, they are temporarily kept separate from the girls who are yet to be milked and it allows for a lot less confusion for me.
I open gate #1 in the milking room and on a good day, 8 happy goat girls file in, put their heads in the stanchion and begin eating grain. I lock their heads in and proceed to wash all 8 of the udders lined up before me just below eye level with a paper towel dipped in the hot iodine solution. Once all the udders are washed and dried, I go through a "strip" each of the goats, squeezing about 15 milliliters or one hefty squirt of milk into a cup with a grated plastic lid, which allows the milk to go through but also allows us to check the consistency of the milk. If anything seems off about the milk (color, consistency, the goat seems unhappy to have her teat touched or the udder is unusually warm) I will test the milk using the California Mastitis Test.
This test is similar to a science experiment you'd do at home as a kid. You squirt a little milk into one of the shallow cups and add an equal amount of purple mystery liquid. You give it a swirl. If the two liquids do not homogenize immediately, or they become viscous it means there is a high somatic cell count in the milk (which is indicative of an infection) and it should not be used-- in which case, I will milk the teat in question out by hand. It can be only one or sometimes both teats in a goat that are affected. I will also give the goat a handful of garlic cloves and some apple cider vinegar. I will also rub her udders with a lotion infused with peppermint oil to cool down the affected area, which often gets hot.
Of course, the vast majority of the goats have no problems whatever, so one they are washed and stripped I open the valve with creates suction in the inflations and adhere them to the udders. Quickly I can see milk rushing into the translucent tubes that lead from the inflations to the stainless steel pipes. Four goats can be milked at a time, so I often begin by milking the girls I know will take the longest, either because they are temperamental, have very small openings on their teats (which only allows a very limited quantity of milk out at a time) or because they simply have a lot of milk.
As you can see from the image above, female goats have two teats. Since we're pointing out the obvious here, I am also going to state that a doe (female goat) must get pregnant and kid (give birth) before she will have any milk. This is also called freshening. Like humans, goats don't lactate without good reason (to feed their offspring).
Usually one side of the udder will run out of milk before the other, cause the inflation to make a loud sucking sound that indicates that side is dry. A rubber stopper is then placed in that inflation to keep anything else from entering while the other teat finishes up. At this point, many of the goats will become anxious and try to kick off the inflations, sometimes kicking my arm or hand along with it. In this case I will stand behind the goat with my hand on her back and speak to her in a low, soothing voice. Sometimes she will become frantic (or "bitchy" you might say) and refuse to let me put the inflation back on and I am forced to finish milking her out by hand.
Once all 8 goats are milked out, their teats are dipped in another, more potent iodine solution to help constrict the orifice and prevent infection. Gate #2 is opened and their heads are freed from the stanchion. Some goats will file out without an issue and sometimes it is a battle to get everyone out of the milking parlor.
This process (8 goats come in, get milked, go out) is repeated 5 or 6 times until all the goats are finished. It usually takes from 90 minutes to 2 hours depending on how easily they come into the milking parlor. Sometimes they all crowd around the back of the barn and refuse to move a muscle, sometimes they saunter on in like it's nothing. Typically they are more excited to be milked in the evenings, probably because they've been moving around all day and are in need for some calories. That being said, they always have access to the finest of organic hay.
Once all the goats are done I open all the gates and turn the vacuum switch from auto to manual which pumps the milk remaining in the system (the pipes, filter and a small holding tank in the milking parlor) into the bulk tank in the other room. I then take an extremely clean bucket from the shelf, turn off the pump and allow the very last of what's left in the system to flow out the plastic hose which attaches to the holding tank, into the bucket. This can sometimes be as much as 2 gallons of milk. Another filter is then placed at the opening to the bulk tank and the milk from the bucket is added to the collection.
This commences the cleaning process. The sink is filled with cold water, hot soapy water and finally acid in three separate cycles which are pumped throughout the seamless stainless steel pipes. The milking parlor is scrubbed and hosed and all the buckets, filters, rubber stoppers, etc. are cleaned with some pretty stringent chemicals. I wear crocs and heavy-duty gloves. Finally I refill the paper towels, the iodine teat dip, the grain container and shut off all the pumps, air injectors and pulsation control. 3 hours from the start and 12 gallons of milk later, we're through.
This is basically how all dairy animals are milked in any kind of industrial setting. It happens twice a day in hundreds of thousands of dairies worldwide every day. It is a process that requires meticulous concentration to cleanliness. It requires one to think about a lot of different factors at once. It's not easy, but it is fun, and you never stop moving.
No comments:
Post a Comment