Got Milk?

 As part of my dietetic internship, we went to Kellogg Dairy Farm in Hickory Corners, MI. It is part of the Michigan State University program. We learned all about the practices used when milking cows. I learned so much information and went home feeling like this company used very animal friendly practices.

 Part of the MSU farm across the street from the plant

 My class of interns. I am all the way on the left.

Now, onto the interesting part. Cows at this farm are milked voluntarily. What does that mean? It means that they can choose when they want to be milked. They just walk up to this huge $200,000 machine and it milks them.  The machine knows which cow it is, where exactly the utters are located on that particular cow, etc. The machine first cleans the udder, attaches the parts, and milks the cow.

Here is some interesting facts about the milk that I learned:
-A cow has 4 separate quarters on their body from where the milk comes. Each quarter is attached to one of the udders. 
-If a cow is not milked for 12 hours or more, someone will go to get them so that they get milked.
-When one utter is empty during milking, the machine lets go of that utter and lets it continue milking the others. This helps to prevent mastitis which is an infection in the mammary gland.
-The average cow there weighs 1350 pounds!
-Each cow produces about 45-85 gallons of milk PER DAY!
-During the summer months, milk production is much lower due to the cow eating mostly grass as opposed to corn, hay, etc.
-To keep milk production up, each cow needs to give birth about once per year.

Mooo!

I absolutely loved this trip and learned a ton about milking cows.