I Milked a Cow!

The milking of 35 cows was a surprisingly calm and peaceful event. Apparently that's the way you want it if the cows are to produce the maximum amount of milk. Mary gave us a lesson in hand milking and both Alexander and I were successful at getting some milk out but I wouldn't have wanted to milk a whole cow by hand let alone 35! Contrary to the impression the photo gives, (taken by Alexander), I did actually touch that udder and milk!

What was most fascinating was that each cow knows exactly which stall to go into and will go into the same stall every time to be milked. They sort of all positioned themselves before being hooked up to the milking machines. Also some prefer to be milked from the left rather than the right and here's a weird piece of information some farmers will play their cows music during milking and Sherwin reliably informed us that county is preferred to soft rock!