How to Milk a Cow by Hand

Alright, good to see you. My name is Farmer Jack and I am here to show you how to milk a cow. Now, as I said before, we have got Sunshine here. She is about a five year old Holstein. Holsteins are the biggest cows in the world and so these are the kind of cows that are perfect for milking.

Now, we do not milk cows by hand any more because it takes too darn long. Even for myself, I know you do not believe I am a real farmer, but I was born raised outside Albuquerque. My grandfather had, about 32, had a cow one time that he was milking by hand. Now, we did not have cows like this but for a real farmer it takes about a half an hour if I was to strip her down. So, we do not milk cows by hand any more but this is the way we used to it.

Alright, think it is kind of natural; everybody should milk a cow one time in their life. I think it is number seven on that old life list. Now, first of, you cannot just sit underneath the cow. She is all full of milk. You do not just start yanking and pulling because you got to relax her. Now, farmers call that letting the milk down.

Now, even the baby cows know that. Right? Yeah, now this is Nick here and he is 39 days old and he is real big but the biggest cows have the biggest babies. Now, when Nick comes up to drink from the mommy, you ever see a baby come up, first thing they do, get in there with their nose, they start bulking and prodding.

Now, that is just nature s way to tell her to relax these muscles, real, strong animal. So, now this is the first milking of the day and she is almost ready. Now, in a milking barn you milk a cow twice a day. You have to get optimum production like I said, you can get what 12, 13, 14 gallons in one day out of this cow, but it is natural. The baby is coming up 24*7, so you can milk a cow all day if you want.

So, this is what we do, I think she is all ready now. Alright, now, take your thumb and first finger. Now, you see when you are on in TV or in the movies, you see them yanking and pulling. That is not how you milk a cow. That is just going to give you stretched out udders. Now, what you do is you take your thumb and first finger and clap it off like this. Now, you tuck it underneath your arms like this come on do it with me. You guys will do anything. Now, that is what you do. I am just going to clamp it off here. This does not hurt her one bit. Yeah, milking a cow does not hurt her one bit. As a matter of fact; if you see she does not even have a lead-line on, she is not tethered in any way. In the dairy barns, these cows just walk up on their own and get milked mechanically.

So, this does not hurt her one bit. Milk weighs a whole lot. As a matter of fact, they measure it in pounds not gallons. So, we got to clamp it off here, now this right below the udder, right at the very bottom of the udder before the teet here. Now, that traps the milk, so it cannot go back up into the udder. Now, instead of pulling down, I just squeeze. That is the very first one so she is just going to get slow.

Now, watch how she starts to loosen up and then that milk just starts flowing. So, this is the way we used to do it. So, my grandfather, he had 32 cows, it takes a half an hour to milk a cow. He will milk a cow twice a day. So, that is an hour for a cow, he was milking cows 32 hours every day.

Oh, is not she sweet? Alright, can you see what I am doing? You can? Alright. Now, we are just about done here. Like I said, we do not milk cows by hand any more because it takes too darn long but it is about time to show you the milking machine. Alright, come on, let us all join hands, the circle of life, come on, join on.