From field to fridge...Dairy placement

For the last two weeks, I have been waking up at around 5am every morning to get to a local dairy farm as part of my pre-clinical animal husbandry training. I must admit that before this experience I didn't know a vast deal about dairy production apart from the material we'd covered in lectures so it's fantastic to be getting more hands on and talking with farmers about how their production system works.

The main bulk of my morning is spent helping the herdsman to milk 170 cows. The main breeds in this dairy herd are Holstein-Fresians (the most common black and white dairy breed), Brown Swiss (chocolate to light brown cows) and Montbeliarde (black and white with a predominately white face).

Milking begins at 5.45am on this farm and typically takes until around 8.30am. The milking parlour is classified as a 9/18 parlour with 9 cows milked on either side at any one time. In the mornings quite a few of the cows will rush into the parlour to be milked and some even seem to thoroughly enjoy the process, others take a bit more persuading to enter! Surprisingly I've found that whistling at the cows is a really useful way of encouraging them to move forwards and they are quite responsive to it at this farm which makes life a lot easier when you've got over 100 to get through! Milking then begins all over again at 2.30pm!

At the beginning of my placement, I found it incredibly difficult to maneuver my hands into the correct position to apply the milking machine to the teats (cows have 4 teats on their udder, unlike sheep which only have 2), however by the end of the week I found it a lot easier, especially as the cows got to recognise me a bit better and stood still for long enough for me to apply the machine!

During this time of the year, the cows are being "dried off" - this means that the farmer is gradually reducing the amount of milk the cow produces before they are turned out in the field for around 2 months to preserve their energy ready for when they calve in late September/October.

 In order to produce the milk we use everyday a cow needs to have a calf every year so it will keep lactating. Farmers aim to keep their cows lactating for around 305 days with a dry period of 60 days before calving. Because of this need to keep producing calves year on year, fertility is a major part of the dairy industry. To make sure farmers can try to get the best results the cows wear "heat detector collars" or pedometers which track their movements. When a cow is "on heat" it is the optimum time for breeding whether by Artificial Insemination which is a common practice in the dairy industry or natural methods by introducing a bull. The information from the collar or pedometer is then read by a special box which creates a graph of activity. If there are peaks showing high levels of movement it means the cow is ready to be mated.  Cows have a 21 day cycle with the oestrus (mating) stage lasting 18-24 hours, ovulation occurs 12 hours following this, therefore it is important that farmers act rather quickly when a cow on heat is detected.

My favourite job on the farm was feeding the calves. Whilst I was there I had five of them to look after but come September there will be a lot more around the place! What I loved about the calves was their differing personalities. There was a Brown Swiss calf I secretly named Luna who was rather timid but very sweet, a very nosy one who looked slightly like a panda with black circles around his eyes who got the nickname Headbutt because everytime I tried to give him his milk he decided to slam his rather large head into my side - I think he thought I was his mother and was looking for an udder... But the sweetest calf liked to moo when he saw me coming and would suck on my fingers when I came to visit, I wish they stayed that size forever because they're just so very cute!

During my time spent on dairy I also got to accompany the farmer on a trip to the local market where he was selling 3 of his beef bulls to dealers for slaughter. It was a really great experience to see so many different breeds of cattle all in one place and there was something very nice about how everyone seemed to know one another! Furthermore I couldn't believe how fast the cattle would sell - on average the auctioneer would sell a cow in less than a minute before the next one was brought in. No matter how hard I tried I couldn't even work out how people were bidding, it was so subtle, I was almost scared to cough in case I somehow ended up with a cow (although that wouldn't be so bad...) Sheep were also being sold at this market and it was a good test of my knowledge of breeds. Like the cows, groups of these sheep were sold so very quickly I wondered how anyone had any time to even process who had won them! I found out that cattle at auction for slaughter are sold in pence per kg. The farmer I went with ended up with a pretty good price for his 3 bulls so he was very happy that day!

Despite the early mornings and all the mess (I was repeatedly covered in muck for an entire two weeks), I thoroughly enjoyed my time spent milking and I have even more admiration for dairy farmers and in some ways feel that the price we pay for milk maybe is a bit on the low side considering all the planning, management and effort that goes in to running a dairy herd. Now everytime I look at a bottle of milk I can't help but think back to the farm and the milking parlour and realise just how incredible these cows are to produce as much milk as they do. Where would Britain be without them - the coffee would be bitter and black, the tea not quite as perfect, the cereals dry and bland and the Great British Bake Off without a key ingredient for many cakes! So next time you reach into your fridge in a morning for that pint of milk think of the hard working farmers and cows that have to produce it!