Interactive lesson

Milking a cow, step by step

Interactive lesson: place and kit, udder preparation, hand milking and the bucket milker, washing and cooling, mastitis and the CMT, and safety beside the cow.

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The whole lesson as text

1. Place and kit

You milk twice a day, roughly 300 days a year: keep the place and the kit always the same.

Same time — Two milkings a day, roughly every 12 hours. Intervals of 10 and 14 hours don't matter, as long as they're the same every day.
A calm place — With one or two cows you milk on the standing, while the cow is tied and eating. No dogs, no running children, no noise.
Bucket and stool — A stainless steel bucket of 10–15 L, with no seams or dents. A three-legged or low stool, so both hands are free.
Strip cup and cloths — A black strip cup for the first squirts, a bucket of warm water and a cloth for each cow, washed at 60 °C.

Why: Cows like routine. The same time, the same voice and a calm place mean the cow lets her milk down faster and doesn't kick. A missed or late milking means less milk and a risk of mastitis.

The milking kit isn't used for anything else.
Milk doesn't stay in the shed: after milking the bucket goes straight to a clean dairy room or the house for straining and cooling.

2. Preparing the udder

Wash the teats, not the whole udder.

Dry cloth — Wipe the teats and the udder floor with a dry cloth.
Pre-dip the teats — Dip or wash the teats, 30 seconds. Use a teat dip the vet recommends.
First squirts — The first 2–3 squirts into the black strip cup, never onto the standing or into the bucket. Clots, flakes, watery milk or blood mean mastitis.
Wipe and start — Wipe the teats dry, each cow her own cloth. Start milking within 60–90 seconds of starting preparation.

Why: When the cow senses milking, her brain releases oxytocin, which lets the milk down. That takes roughly 60–90 seconds, and the milk flows easily for roughly 5–7 minutes. Start too late or frighten the cow and she holds her milk back.

Clean hands, short nails, no rings. Anyone with diarrhoea or a septic wound doesn't milk.
Water running off a dirty udder into the bucket carries bacteria: sort out the bedding and standing first.