Dairy Farm

I spent my day at a dairy farm in Massachusetts through the Food Literacy Project here at Harvard.

They are the only farm in Massachusetts that uses a robotic milking machines, and these machines were thoroughly impressive. You see the cow walk in, the door closes behind the cow, and then the robotic and come out with the suction cups. The machine starts blinking with red lasers, reading the cow's teats like a barcode at the supermarket. Its robotic arm brings the suction cup towards the utter, but the cow gets antsy and kicks the machine. However, Robert, as I will now call the robot, knows what to do. It immediately knows the cows has kicked it, and that the suction cup may now be contaminated. It cleans itself and tries again until all 4 teats have suction cups attached. It then records exactly how much milk comes from each teat, and using salinity test, it tests for mastitis. On the end, the cow gave over 12 pounds of milk, and cows are milked 3 times a day.

Calfs are so cute! We met one that was 3 weeks old and when I stuck my hand in its pen, it put my entire hand in its mouth and started to suck on it like a bottle. So cute, but super slimy!

A few facts about cows:

Cows weigh about 1500 lbs and a bull 2,000.

Each cow releases over 100 pounds of manure everyday.

A calf weighs abot 75 pouds at birth

Cows only live 10-15 years

Cows have no upper front teeth

It takes 10 pounds of milk to make one pound of cheese

A cow doesn't bite the grass that feeds her, she curls her tongue around it

Here's a video I took of the milking machine in action.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GVcqyDrHmFM