Milk

[Kevin]

*Replying to wrong person*

Here in NZ we are starting to see automated milking sheds where cows can walk in at any time rather than the regular once early in the morning, once late at night. Laser guided cups attach themselves and milk the cows. Guess what they found out... the cows on average wandered in three times per day to get milked. (Mind you, over here cows live outside... I can't figure out how a battery cow farm would work)
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My Aunt and Uncle own a dairy farm (they inherited it from my grandfather) and they have always milked 4 times a day it was a 5am, 10am, 3pm, 8pm schedule, if I recall right. I think they tried three times a day and got slightly higher yields but lower milk fat content. Since they have a Guernsey herd, not holstein, milk fat is more important since Guernseys are generally higher anyway, and milk fat is used in lots and lots of things. Price per gallon differences for the higher milk fat content more than made up for the lower yield.

I can't imagine a 2 time a day milk pattern. All of the other dairy farmers I knew (and I like Treesh grew up in a rural area) were 3 or 4 times a day schedules as well.

And yes all the cows were named. When they got too old to be good milkers they were slaughtered. Since both my aunt and uncle were sci-fi fans (my uncle got a degree in agriculture with a minor in astronomy) I have eaten Spock, Yoda, Vader, and several other Star Trek and Star Wars named animals. :)