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Dairy farming is a class of agricultural, or an animal husbandry, enterprise, for long-term production of milk, usually from dairy cows but also from goats and sheep, which may be either processed on-site or transported to a dairy factory for processing and eventual retail sale.
Most dairy farms sell the male calves born by their cows, usually for veal production, or breeding depending on quality of the bull calf, rather than raising non-milk-producing stock.[citation needed] Many dairy farms also grow their own feed, typically including corn, alfalfa, and hay. This is fed directly to the cows, or is stored as silage for use during the winter season. Additional dietary supplements are often added to the feed to increase quality milk production.
Keeping milk cool helps preserve it. When windmills and well pumps were invented, one of its first uses on the farm besides providing water for animals was for cooling milk, to extend the storage life before being transported to the town market. The naturally cold underground water would be continuously pumped into a tub or other containers of milk set in the tub to cool after milking. This method of milk cooling was extremely popular before the arrival of electricity and refrigeration.
When refrigeration first arrived (the 19th century), the equipment was fairly small and did not have the ability to rapidly cool the large volume of milk that was entering the storage tank in a short period of time. This problem was resolved through the development of the ice bank. This is a double-walled tank design where water and cooling coils fill the space underneath and around the milk tank above.
All day long, the small compressor and cooling system slowly draws heat out of the water, while a second pump continuously circulates the water around the coils. Ice eventually builds up around the coils, until it reaches a thickness of about three inches surrounding each pipe, and the cooling system shuts off. When the milking operation starts only the milk agitator and the water circulation pump blowing water across the ice and the steel walls of the tank are needed to rapidly reduce the incoming milk to a temperature below 40 degrees. But because the ice is not permitted to build up until it touches the milk storage tank, the milk does not get cold enough to also freeze.
This cooling method worked well for smaller dairies up to about 40 cows, but for large numbers of animals a better system was needed to rapidly cool the incoming warm milk. This is usually done using a device known as a plate chiller, which is a heat exchanger. Alternating stainless steel plates cause the milk to flow in a thin sheet across the plates, while cold water is circulated in a thin sheet on the other side of the plates. Flattening out the milk flow permits quick. even cooling for all the milk, compared to a round tube where the center core does not cool as rapidly as the walls.
The plate chiller has high cooling demands, and for many farms this involves a step back into the past, back to the days of windmills and milk-can cooling, except now a large volume of naturally cold underground water is continuously streamed through the plate chiller to quickly bring the milk down to the temperature of the underground water at about 50 °F (10 °C). The water is usually not just dumped back into the ground again, but reused for washing and other purposes.
But the milk still is not as cold as it needs to be, so the milk storage tank is still used to do further cooling, to bring the milk down to 40 degrees. But with the development of high-power 3-phase electrical service, ice-bank chillers are typically no longer used. Instead the milk storage tank is a direct-cooling system with cooling coils embedded in the walls of the tank, that quickly pull the heat out and dump it across a large array of possibly several different high-horsepower compressors and condensing units. Once the milk has achieved 40 °F (4 °C) after milking is finished, only one or two cooling units need to run occasionally to maintain the correct temperature.
Milking machines are held in place automatically by a vacuum system that draws the ambient air pressure down from 15 to 21 pounds of vacuum. The vacuum is also used to lift milk vertically through small diameter hoses, into the receiving can. A milk lift pump draws the milk from the receiving can through large diameter stainless steel piping, through the plate cooler, then into a refrigerated bulk tank.
Milk is extracted from the cow’s udder by flexible rubber sheaths known as liners or inflations that are surrounded by a rigid air chamber. A pulsating flow of ambient air and vacuum is applied to the inflation’s air chamber during the milking process. When ambient air is allowed to enter the chamber, the vacuum inside the inflation causes the inflation to collapse around the cow’s teat, squeezing the milk out of teat in a similar fashion as a baby calf’s mouth massaging the teat. When the vacuum is reapplied in the chamber the flexible rubber inflation relaxes and opens up, preparing for the next squeezing cycle.
It takes the average cow three to five minutes to give her milk. Some cows are faster or slower. Slow-milking cows may take up to fifteen minutes to let down all their milk. Milking speed is only minorly related to the quantity of milk the cow produces – milking speed is a separate factor from milk quantity; milk quantity is not determinative of milking speed. Because most milkers milk cattle in groups, the milker can only process a group of cows at the speed of the slowest-milking cow. For this reason, many farmers will cull slow-milking cows.
The extracted milk passes through a strainer and plate heat exchangers before entering the tank, where it can be stored safely for a few days at approximately 3 °C or around 42 °F (6 °C). At pre-arranged times, a milk truck arrives and pumps the milk from the tank for transport to a dairy factory where it will be pasteurized and processed into many products.
Watch the video related to dairy farm
Short video showing some of the technology at the London Dairy Farm in London, Ontario
Help answer the question about dairy farm
How is it like working in New Zealand as a Dairy Farm Worker?A job has been offered to work at a dairy farm in NZ and I would like to know the working environment, cost of living, etc. Can I bring my family with me? I am considering emigration, my husband is a civil engineer and we have a 3 year old daughter. Any advise?
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I live in virginia as well. I’m a vegan.
Nice to meet you.
I just don’t think we should be stealing the milk from mother cows. But…other people think we have to have this milk…so….
But … I didn’t hear a single “Moo” ! LOL
I'm getting a mental image of an ancient woman trying to nurse her baby and finding that she has no milk…then she sees a bovine type creature nursing from its mother. She or her mate trap the animal, milk it and the human baby survives. The rest just falls into place.
But thats just my imagination. Here's a website I found for you:
http://www.cyberspaceag.com/…/dairycattle/dairyhistory.htm
Dairy farming is a class of agricultural, or more properly, an animal husbandry enterprise, raising female cattle for long-term production of milk, which may be either processed on-site or transported to a dairy for processing and eventual retail sale. Most dairy farms sell the male calves borne by their cows, usually for veal production, rather than raising non-milk-producing stock. Many dairy farms also grow their own feed, typically including corn, alfalfa, and hay. This is fed directly to the cows, or stored as silage for use during the winter season. Additional dietary supplements are added to the feed to increase quality milk production.
External links
Got (Genetically Engineered) Milk? The Monsanto rBGH/BST Milk Wars Handbook e-book
I do not come from a farming backround, but I do my research. These videos are designed to clean up the image of large scale dairy production. The recent documentations of livestock mistreatment has forced the dairy industry to reasure consumers with PR videos like Dairy Farming Today. Personally, I try to get my milk from Smaller family operations near where I live in Virginia. It does not have to be organic either.
NO
First off, dairy cows are not given any estrogen hormones so that's not even an issue, ever.
In my opinion, the greatest risk that dairy farming poses is the potential for the manure storage units to leak. If the manure storage containers were to fail, manure would leak out into rivers and streams, killing wildlife and ruining water supplies. This doesn't happen very often but it has happened before. There are pretty hefty fines involved when it does occur. There are also very strict regulations to prevent this.
(And cows do produce methane along with many other species that poop and burp. So I think that is just an unfair attack on the dairy industry. We could just exterminate everything that poops. That would solve the problem. *sarcasm*)
They are mothers and should be treated that way!!
I think that Fiji has a great potential of growing economically if they increase the numbers of dairy farms, as of 1998, only 215 farms were registered. Following the example of New-Zealand, it has created many sources of employment, so Fili can as well benefit.
Traveler24, I completely agree that cows should be treated well, on my farm our cows have access to a fresh supply of feed, a barn for protection, comfortable bedding and fresh water. We have the veterinarian out for regular medical exams and work with a nutritionist to provide a well-balanced diet. I encourage you to check out the other videos on the dairy farming today channel, they show all the steps we take to ensure our cows are well cared for to provide safe, nutritious dairy products.
nice set-up and a positive video explaining the dairy bus. thanks. B
I get a lot of organic food info from the Organic Farming Research Foundation
As a member of the dairy farming today team and someone who grew up on a dairy farm, I thank you for watching. These videos show a cross-section of the entire dairy industry. While all dairy operations are managed differently, all farmers have the same dedication to their animals because they in turn provide for us and our families. Im glad you visit local farms (and drink your milk). I encourage everyone to visit a real-life farm to see for themselves what dairy farming is all about.
Develope a business plan, be sensible and honest with yourself. Then go to your local bank with your plan and ask them to look at it and see what they can help you with. They might have some ideas on how you can make this idea into a reality. You may have to start smaller and work up to the number you mentioned, that's ok (Rome wasn't built in a day, either). You may also check out the Farm Credit service in your area. Might also talking to some dairymen in your area, they can be helpful and may want to upgrade equipment/etc to help you out.
I think its FANTASTIC that a young person WANTS to dairy, you already know its hard work and many hours.
Good Luck with your endeavor and keep me undated.
Cows are more productive in the Upper Midwest (North Central states) than the Corn Belt, but the reason is not well known. The Upper Midwest dairy farms outproduce the Corn Belt farms by a margin of 3-1.
Various hypotheses have been advanced attempting
to explain why the structure of dairy farming is so
diverse across different regions of the United States.
Factors such as differences in topography, climate,
history, cultural base, complementary and alternative
farm enterprises, and resource endowments and economies
of size have generally been identified as explanations
for the differences.
A number of factors have combined to bring about
the changes in structure of the milk producer sector that
have been noted. The over-riding factor can simply be
described as the increased productivity of milk cows.
Booooooo!
or should I say…..
Mooooooo!