Our dairy was in a herringbone style with cows standing side by side in a staggered fashion, 6 on each side of a waist-high hole where we worked with sets of swinging milking cups. A strong steel bar in their rears and a thick concrete ledge behind their hind legs kept them from joining us down there…for the most part.
This old dairy had been the first herringbone style in the area, a breakthrough in its day, but this one already had ‘whiskers’, as we would discover. There was a long trough with a walking space in front to allow the ration of crushed grain to be hand fed into it. For the sake of speed and ease of handling, I carefully lined up where each cow’s head would be and placed 6 buckets in each trough. It sounded good to me.
On this first day, my husband and I went on foot to bring the cows. Its size was a bit ‘exaggerated’ for this ex-secretary, and it was necessary to strengthen the ‘Dutch courage’ a bit. Lesson No. 1: When cows have been herded by a sheep farmer and dogs by him, and then treated with quiet but firm encouragement by humans ‘on foot’, they do NOT respond with gratitude and appreciation.
NO… all the dripping ladies had to stop everything they were doing to ‘glance at us with wide eyes’; ‘poop’; turn around and start following us (from a rapidly diminishing distance…did I mention cows are SO curious); ‘poop’ some more; they finally start moving together, in the wrong direction; and just for good luck, ‘poop’ again.
On this day, a human was required at the front, for them to follow, and a human at the back to encourage forward momentum. I can’t tell you how much we’ve laughed at the memory. We seriously had no idea! But at last they were in the concrete courtyard with the gate chained securely behind them. With the push of a button, the milking machine sprang into action and “all systems work.”
Except…the first cow to enter the dairy stopped at the first pile of feed in the long trough and began to eat. And everyone else began to crowd in behind her, jostling and shoving each other like a mob scene at a department store opening. Soon, there were cows in the engine room, and the milk room around the huge (and extremely valuable) vat of refrigerated milk. A couple came down the steps to ‘our’ pit; two were squeezed between the tail rail and the channel; and another tried to jump on the trough and succeeded in straddling it.
Before this event, we were apprehensive, but pretty sure that bravery would outweigh anything we had to face. Hey! Now our stomachs and nervous systems were more like the stuff that jellyfish are made of, as we tried to restore order to the incredible chaos that overwhelmed us. I remember we had to let them out back to the dirt patio next to the concrete and clean up the dairy (you can guess why!). Next, remove the offending feed from the feeders. Oh! You feed them after they’ve gone in, shuffled and groomed (and pooped again, where does all that come from?).
Trust me, it’s not a job for the faint-hearted: all these ‘poppy’ eyes in huge heads, all staring at you. Some want to smell and taste you with tongues as long as a snake (well, almost), while others roll their eyes, flop their ears back, and shake their heads. It’s hard to decide which is worse. Only one more happened before this long day was over, but that’s another story, coming soon, honestly!
It had taken us almost 4 hours from ‘whoa to go’ to milk 26 cows. We were very proud to find that we cut that down to 2-1/2 hours on the next one: the afternoon milking. That day, we would not have believed the ‘norm’ that we achieved much later: 65 cows in 2 hours!
But this was ‘easy street’, as my mother-in-law would have told her. She grew up in Denmark, milking three cows by hand, three times a day, and was denied the chance to learn hairdressing.
“There’s no future in hairstyles, girl – cash cows – that’s the thing to do!” declared her father, with the utmost severity.
Hmm-mm-m! (says Christine… the cowgirl?)
Christina