Milking Time!

Have you seen the TV program about the British farmers who have the absolute latest in technology for dairy farming? We watched, open mouthed, the other night. These two brothers have a normal dairy herd that comes into the milking parlour twice a day to be milked the normal way - the cows are herded in from the fields morning and evening, they go into their usual stalls with a bit of pushing and shoving if another is stupid enough to go into the wrong place. They have their udders washed by the farmers before the electronic milking machine is put onto the teats by hand - herd of 30 cows, each with 4 teats, you do the math! The farmers have to, by hand, put the right amount of feed for each cow into the troughs and, once milked, the herd has to be let out to pasture again and the dairy cleaned.

Down the road is the brothers NEW dairy and another herd of about 30 cows! THIS one is SO different from the norm. The cows go in when THEY feel like being milked! They pass through a doorway that robotically reads a chip in their ear and knows which cow it is, what her yield was last milking, what time she last came in, how much feed she should be getting and drops that amount into the trough. The robot washes her teats, fits her with the suction cups and her milk yield gets measured and logged. There is also a huge rotary stiff brush that scratches her head and neck should she want it!! Apparently the cows just LOVE this new approach to milking and the yield at the robotically run dairy is 30% higher than in the "old fashioned" one. I say old fashioned in inverted commas because I can STILL remember cows being milked by hand!! THAT gives my age away!