59 



MILKING. 



The cows should be milked regularly at the same hours every 

 day, and these hours should be separated by periods of as nearly- 

 equal duration as possible. 



Cleanliness. Before beginning to milk, the milker should wipe 

 the sides and udder of the cow with a clean rag moistened with fresh 

 clean water. This has the effect of causing loose hairs, dust or 

 bacteria to adhere to the animal, and so they do not fall into the 

 milk pail. The first few streams of milk should not be drawn into 

 the pail for the content of harmful bacteria therein is usually large. 

 Milking should be done with clean, dry hands, and dry teats, and the 

 milker should wash and dry his hands after milking each cow. This, 

 besides keeping his hands clean, prevents the spread of any disease, 

 such as sore teats, from one animal to the other. In short, the 

 utmost cleanliness should be exercised by the milker in the care of 

 the animal, of the milk dishes, and of himself. 



The milking shqudd be done as rapidly as possible, though care 

 should be taken that it is done evenly, so that the temper of the cow 

 may not be disturbed. , 



Periods between Milkings. As already indicated, the periods 

 between milkings should be as nearly equal in length as possible. It 

 may be stated, however, that experiments conducted here show that, 

 where cows are milked only twice a day, as is the usual practice in 

 Canada, a considerable deviation from this general recommendation 

 may be made without any appreciable effect upon the result in a 

 given period of, say, a couple of months' duration. This is true, of 

 course, within certain limitations, thus, while milking at ten and 

 fourteen-hour intervals might be expected to prove satisfactory, 

 milking at six and eighteen-hour intervals would very certainly 

 prove injurious in effect. 



It should be noted, however, that what is true is this respect 

 about a 30 or 40 pound-a-day cow is not likely to be true with the 

 50 to 60 pound-a-day cow and even much less so in the case of very 

 heavy milking cows yielding, say, 70, 80 or 90 pounds a day. In fact, 

 it is practically certain that no cow would ever reach 80 or 90 Ibs. of 

 milk a day, if the milking were being done only twice in 24 hours. 

 Variations in Quantity and Quality of Milk. It should be 

 observed that the milk yielded by cows milked at unequal periods, 

 but at regular hours,, is likely to vary in quantity proportionately 



