Talk:Dairy farming
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[edit] Untagged Discussion
This page should be used for material relating to the production of raw fluid milk. Everything about what happens after it comes out of the cow (or sheep or goat) should go in dairy. 18.24.0.120 03:41, 1 Feb 2004 (UTC)
We don't drink the unrefined milk we get from our cows. We buy our milk from the stores. This is because the doctors wanted dad to not drink whole milk, and as I understand it there's germs in unrefined milk that would be unhealthy to consume.
JesseG July 2, 2005 02:01 (UTC)
The details on the speed of milking are - I would suggest, massively out of date. The majority of milking parlours would be herringbone or rotary parlours easily capable of milking 100+ cows per hour per person, for example on my dairy farm I milk approximatly 350 cows in 2 hours on my own. It's not unheard of for large parlours to be able to milk 400+ cows per hour. Matt 23:59, 21 September 2005 (UTC)
Yes the times are massively out dated as here on our farm we milk 450 cows with 1 person and that only takes about 2 and a half hours.
It is inaccurate to say that antibiotics are widely fed to dairy cattle to mask the effects of BST (somatotropin). There are no antibiotics that are legal to feed to lactating dairy cows in the United States, with the exception of Rumensin. Rumensin is technically an antibiotic but has no use in therapy of any disease. It modifies the flora of the rumen (largest compartment of the stomach and the main fermentation vat where feed is converted to nutrients the cow can use) to increase feed efficiency and decrease methane production. Walter Guterbock, DVM
Can you tell us what usually happens to US dairy cows when they age past milk production? Do they then become human meat? This is related to ref desk question about bST in meat. alteripse 22:12, 18 February 2006 (UTC)
Most old dairy cattle do become meat. I think about 55% of hamburger comes from retired dairy cattle. And bST in meat is not a hazard since it is naturally occurring even if not injected. ScottK 00:34, 27 October 2006 (UTC)
[edit] dairy farming - variations between countires
I would like to see more information regarding the fact that NZ has a majority pasture based system compared to its Northern Hemisphere counterparts which use a more supplement based system. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 203.211.87.230 (talk • contribs) .
Hmmm... Point taken, this has come and gone in the article a few times! Care is needed as it tends to sound as if the intention is to denigrate the production methods and herd mangement techniques of other countries. The casual viewer will likely get a negative impression of dairy products and production methods in general - what works well in one climate may not be the most suitable system for another part of the world . 4wd 21:38, 1 September 2006 (UTC)
[edit] bST: reason for removing text
I removed the following recent addition because it seems unlikely:
Many farms in the US provide cows with a growth hormoneknown as "BST" or "rBGH" to increase milk production. This supplement works by stimulating the pituitary gland of the cow into the belief that it is springtime and precipitating the so-called "spring surge" of heightened production. A similar but less pronounced effect can be produced by setting barn lighting on timers to provide fourteen hours of light and ten hours of darkness, again convincing the cow that it is springtime.
My only claims to dairy expertise are having driven a milk truck for a summer, and a silver cup awarded to my great grandfather for best quality milk at the Western Washington Fair in 1927. However, I do know that mammalian somatotropin is produced by the pituitary gland and the target tissues are bones and other organs and tissues in the body, and that the pituitary is not site of regulation of circadian and annual physiologic rhythms (the hypothalamus is far more important). Somatotropin is closely related to prolactin, which stimulates mammalian breast cells to make milk. It seems highly unlikely that the mechanism by which bST amplifies milk production is by a direct action on the pituitary to induce a shift of an annual biorhythm. However, if you can produce a source, I will gladly admit my ignorance and thank you for the education. In absence of a source, this sounds like a "rural legend", to coin a phrase. alteripse 03:35, 7 May 2006 (UTC)
http://www.milkproduction.com/Library/Articles/Light.htm ? Vaarok 12:13, 15 May 2006 (EST)
Thanks for taking the trouble, but if you read your source carefully, it backs up my assertion, not the original paragraph. It says that both light and bST increase IGF1. It suggests light works through melatonin (the pineal gland), perhaps indirectly increasing endogenous pituitary bST production, while injected bST raises IGF1 levels by the same mechanism as pituitary bST. Do you follow the endocrinology?
- light > pineal > melatonin > pituitary > endogenous bST > IGF1 > got milk
- injected bST > IGF1 > got more milk
alteripse 04:46, 15 May 2006 (UTC)
Question - Is BST actually a "Growth Hormone"? The term doesn't sound quite right. - 4wd , 25 May 2006
Sure. See our article on bovine somatotropin. alteripse 02:08, 25 May 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Robotic Milking
Does anyone have experience enough of the recent robotic milking sytems to put something together? Most of the problems seem to have been solved and there are many herds in teh UK, Holland, Denmark and more using two or three robotic milking crates. Running for several hours daily they can be effectively unattended, the machine will send text messgae to the farmer if aproblem arises. (4wd 22:27, 27 May 2006 (UTC))
[edit] Milk Inspectors
Grew up on a dairy farm (12 cows) so read this with fascination--one of the best articles I've seen, but, where's the discussion on milk inspection, trout in the milk and all that? Bharshaw 21:01, 30 June 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Average herd size
It is stated that the average herd size in New Zealand is 600 cows. I looked up herd size in New Zealand on google. NZ Large Herd Association gives 315 as the average size. Other sites give numbers of less than 315 and as low as 229. I doubt that the average size is 600 cows, and probably is at most around half that number. TheCorporation 07:14, 22 July 2006 (UTC)
Numbers for the US also appear to be even more incorrect and the average herd size is around 100 cows [1]--TheCorporation 23:56, 22 July 2006 (UTC)
This is open to interpretation as the "Herd" could be taken to include young heifers not as yet in milk - up to about 30 months old. The way this is worded in tharticle does mention 'regional variation'. On balance I think most casual readers would be getting an inaccurate picture of the typical herd however --4wd 21:24, 27 July 2006 (UTC) 4wd
according to the new zealand dairy board, the average herd size was 236 in 2000, so i wouldnt say it has increased too much. family farms tend to have herds in the region of 180-300 cows, but large scale farms in my area have between 600 and 200 per farm, so i think we also need to make a distinction between the 2 before we give a herd size average.
[edit] The milking operation
Currently (17Aug06)this section seems bogged down in unecessary details of how a teat is squeezed. Could do with rewriting in a much less technical way. 4wd 23:03, 16 August 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Why was statement on drinking unpasteurised milk deleted?
The following very sensible and mostly accurate paragraph (based on my own experience on a 120-head dairy farm which used a double-six herringbone parlor and had one of the first pipeline systems in Minnesota):
"Dairy farmers, their employees, and their families sometimes drink the unpastuerised milk produced on their farm. However, in some cases it is healthier to drink milk that has been prepared for consumer use by pastuerisation. This is because 'Raw' Milk contains bacteria and other organisms that eventually cause spoilage. Milk is routinely sampled on collection and any that fails tests for bacteria and antibiotic residue will be rejected by dairies for public consumption and even for industrial uses.
was deleted wholesale by an editor who supported the change simply with a POV claim that "drinking unprocessed milk is very UNCOMMON among dairy producers" or some such. Granted there are a few typos but dipping a (well-sanitized) bucket of milk out of the bulk tank is and has been a common practice on the dairy farms I am familiar with. It also stands to reason that most dairy producers in underdeveloped countries would drink their own unprocessed milk -- someone could do the math on the capacity of processing facilities around the world vs. the amount of production.
Granted the above is based largely on my own POV. However, this whole article is unsourced and unreferenced so it seems strange that one POV just replaced another without being challenged. This whole article could use a lot of work.ClearwaterAg 02:39, 31 August 2006 (UTC)
I agree with you, perhaps this should be worked into the article again. Your viewpoint is a valid as any other on Wiki! 4wd 21:42, 1 September 2006 (UTC)
The reason there is a public fear of drinking unpasteurised milk is because of zoonoses such as Tuberculosis. The farmer and his family know if their herd is free of TB since the herd will have been regularly tested. The public have no such reassurance and the best precaution is pasteurisation. However, there is no better tasting milk than that straight from the cow. I'd squirt some straight into my hand and drink it during milking, providing my hands were clean. Brucellosis is another such zoonosis. Tomcrisp7 11:27, 12 November 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Citing sources and cleanup
This article desperately needs its sources cited. I gave up adding [citation needed] because there are simply too many statements that require this. The text could also use a major cleaning, removing additional comments that are best meant as <!-- COMMENT --> so that editors, not readers, can see it. Seicer (talk) (contribs) 00:29, 31 August 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Comments and citations needed
Apologies for the multiple comments inserted as italics. I have gone back and converted these to [citation needed] s with comments as suggested. Speaking as someone with a dairy farming background (120 head in a relatively modern setup for the mid-1970s) the article seems to have been written by contributors with a good knowledge of the business, but considerable work is needed to add citations for the facts they may have taken as basic knowledge, and to balance some of the bits on competition which appear to be geared to particular national perspectives.ClearwaterAg 02:39, 31 August 2006 (UTC)
