Milk...From Moo To You
MILK - REALLY COOL!
Milk is cool - a most excellent drink for kids and adults. Where
does milk come from? How is it made? Why is it so good for you? To
discover these awesome facts about the coolest drink on the planet,
come along on a journey with MILK....FROM MOO TO YOU!
Milk is a very unique food. Babies can live on milk alone for the
first six months of life. All animals that feed milk to their young
are called mammals. You are a mammal and whales are mammals.
Camel, bats, seals and bears are all mammals. And the animal that
makes the milk we drink is also a mammal - the Cow!
COW IN THE WORLD DID THEY GET HERE?
Just like Canadian people whose ancestors came from other
countries, the dairy cows that are commonly found in Canada
originally came from overseas. As people moved here, they brought
dairy cattle with them.
THE FACTS ARE BLACK & WHITE
The most popular and common breed of dairy cow in Canada is the
Holstein which originally came from North Holland. You can
recognize these cows by the large black patches on their white
bodies. This breed produces the most milk of all and makes up 95% of
the dairy cows in Canada. There are about 1,200,000 Holsteins in
Canada.
The remaining 5% of dairy cows includes four other breeds -
Jersey, Guernsey, Ayrshire, and Brown Swiss.
   
The Jersey is light brown with big, brown eyes and
produces rich, yummy milk. Originally, Jerseys came from a small
island in the English Channel as did the Guernsey cow. The
Guernsey is a golden colour with white spots. The Ayrshire
is from Scotland and is white with reddish-brown patches.
Switzerland was the original home of the Brown Swiss whose
colouring is dark brown or silver grey. Find these faraway places on
a map. How do you think these cows first got to Canada?
THE AMOOOZING MILK MACHINE
When you look at a dairy cow, you wouldn't guess that she eats
tonnes of food each year. It's true! She does! Most of this food
energy is used by the cow to make about 30 L of nutritious milk
every day. That would sure fill up your fridge, wouldn't it?
How much milk would a cow produce in a week? A month? Imagine
eating the food an average dairy cow eats in a day:
- 4 kg of hay (about the size of a small microwave oven)
- 16 kg of silage (about half of a child's backyard swimming
pool). Silage is a mixture of grasses and grains that are
fermented in a silo (storage tank)
- 10 kg of mixed grains, salt, vitamins and minerals (2-1/2 ice
cream pails full)
- 100 L of water (2/3 of a standard bathtub full) .
This amount of food is about 75,000 kilocalories a day. When you
consider that an average adult like you mom, dad or teacher only
eats about 2,00 kilocalories in a day, the cow really can eat an "amoozing"
amount of food!!
LET'S TAKE A LOOK AT HOW A COW TURNS ALL THAT FOOD INTO MILK.
In order to make milk, a cow must first have a calf which happens
when she is about two years old. Dairy cows produce about 7,300 L of
milk per year (enough to fill 85 bathtubs!). Since their young
calves need only about 255 L (3 bathtubs full) of this milk for the
first few months of life, all that extra milk is available for us to
enjoy!
When a cow eats, she partially chews and then quickly swallows
her food. This food goes into the first section of her very
interesting stomach. The cow's stomach has four compartments. That's
right! She needs this complicated stomach to digest foods that we
cannot. Imagine a cow with a stomach ache. Do you think it would
hurt 4 times as much as yours? Each section of the cow's stomach has
a different job to do.
Food first enters the rumen (Roo-men). To remember this
say "there is lots of room in the rumen". The second section of the
stomach, called the reticulum (ruh-tic-u-lum), is actually
only partially separated from the rumen and the food can move freely
between the two. The job of the rumen and reticulum is to soften the
food and hold it there until the cow is finished eating. The food
forms into lumps the size of tennis balls, each called a cud.
Then the cow does something very different from us - but perfectly
normal for a cow. She brings the cuds up to her mouth one at a time
and chews them up again - this time more thoroughly. This is what is
happening when a cow looks like she is chewing gum!
The cow swallows the rechewed food again but this time it goes
into the third section of the stomach, the omasum (oh-ma-sum)
where softening and grinding of the food continues. Finally, the
food reaches the fourth compartment, the abomasum (ab-o-ma-sum)
where it is digested much like the food in our stomach. The small
intestine completes digestion and the nutrients are carried by the
blood to the rest of the cow's body.
Why is Milk sometimes blue?
Nutrients from the cow's feed, along with water, fill the cow's
udder to make milk. It is the nutrients that give milk its colour.
The light reflects off the particles of milk fat making it appear
creamy white. When the milk fat is not there, as in skim milk, the
milk has a bluish colour. This is because one of the nutrients,
riboflavin (ry-bo-flay-vin), is blue in colour.
UDDERLY AWESOME!
When the cow's udder is full of milk, it is milking time. The
udder is a pouch with four compartments inside, each with a teat for
the milk to be sucked out of. Farmers used to milk their cows by
hand but now it is much easier, faster and more sanitary to milk the
cows by machine. Some farmers milk their cows two times a day and
others do it three times, but no matter what, they have to milk cows
every day of the year. Therefore, it is important to have the barn
set up in a way that will be easy to milk the cows and save the most
time. There are two basic types of barns used to house dairy cows.
COW HOUSES
During the winter and poor weather, the cows may use the barns
for shelter and to eat and sleep in. When the weather is nice, the
cows may roam the pastures and feed on fresh grass. In fact, the
cows are treated very well by the farmer who gives special care and
attention to ensure the herd is healthy.
1. TIE STALL BARN
Smaller dairy herds are usually housed in a Tie Stall Barn. The
name refers to how the cows are held in place in their stalls. A
strap and a chain that hold the cow are attached to a bar in front
of the cow's head. This does not bother the cow because she can eat
and move around enough to be comfortable. The strap and chain can be
released, when it is time to move the cow from the stall. At milking
time the cows remain in their stalls and the farmer brings the
milking equipment to them.
2. FREE STALL BARN
Larger dairy herds are housed in a Free Stall Barn where it is
easier to handle a greater number of cows and the work for the
farmer is not as heavy. In one part of the barn is the eating and
sleeping area. Down the middle of this area, tractors drive through
to deposit the cows's food in the feed alleys. At milking time, the
cows are moved one group at a time through gates to the milking
parlor. This is a specially designed room where the cows walk up
a ramp to stand in stalls on a raised platform. Between the two rows
of cow stalls is a pit where the farmer stands to attach the milking
equipment. This is easier because the farmer does not have to bend
down to the cow's level to milk her.
3. LOOSE HOUSING
Another type of shelter that is used by some farmers, especially
where the weather is mild, is loose housing. Here, the cows
are allowed to move freely about in a sheltered area.
STEP RIGHT UP TO THE MILKING MACHINE
The milking machine has four cups (called a cluster), one
cup for each teat. Before the cups are fitted on, the farmer cleans
the cow's udder and teats with a disinfectant. The cups gently suck
the milk out of the teats in much the same way as if it were done by
hand. Milking each cow takes about 5 minutes and the cow feels much
better when her udder is not so full.
Milk that is straight from the cow is called raw milk.
This milk is carried through pipes to a refrigerated storage tank in
another room in the barn. All the equipment is washed right after
each use and sanitized right before the next milking.
Every-second day, the raw milk is piped from the storage tank in
the barn to a big, insulated milk truck for its journey to the
dairy.
AT THE DAIRY...
When the milk truck arrives at the dairy, the raw milk is piped
into another cold storage tank. A sample of the milk is taken and
tested for its milk fat content, flavour, odour, and bacterial
count. Milk naturally contains bacteria and because milk is so
nutritious, bacteria can grow really well in it. Some of the
bacteria might make people sick so raw milk must first be
pasteurized (pas-chur-ized) before using.
Pasteurization
This process is named after a famous French scientist, Louis
Pasteur, who discovered that heating milk quickly and then cooling
it quickly kills harmful bacteria without changing the milk's
nutrient value. Today, milk is pasteurized using the HTST (High
Temperature, Short Time) process, meaning the
milk is heated to at least 72*C for 16 seconds and then cooled to
4*C. Most milk in our stores has gone through HTST pasteurization.
A very special way to pasteurize milk is called UHT (Ultra
High Temperature). In this process, the milk is heated
to at least 138*C for not less than 2 seconds! Then it is quickly
cooled down to 2*C. This milk is almost sterilized: there are no
bacteria of any kind present. The milk is packaged in square boxed
under aseptic (ay-sep-tik) conditions - as clean as a
hospital. Therefore, the milk can be stored unopened, at room
temperature for up to 6 months. Once opened, it too needs to be kept
in the refrigerator.
Homogenization
Almost all milk is homogenized (ho-moj-en-ized) to keep
the milk fat from separating and floating to the top. Milk fat is
what makes milk creamy, rich and flavourful. A homogenizer is a
machine which forces the milk at high pressure through tiny holes.
This process breaks up the milk fat globules into particles one
eighth their original size. When the milk fat particles are that
tiny, they stay evenly suspended.
Enrichment and Fortification
A very special nutrient, vitamin D, is added to milk
because we need it, along with calcium, to grow strong, healthy
bones and teeth. When we add nutrients to food, we say that food has
been enriched or fortified. Partly skimmed and skim milk are
also fortified with vitamin A for good eyesight. Homo milk is not
fortified with vitamin A because it contains enough naturally.
Packaging
Machines in the dairy put the cold milk into cartons, plastic
jugs or plastic bags. These containers of milk are taken by a
refrigerated truck to your local grocery store where you can buy
them. You will notice there is a Best Before date on the
containers of milk. The store cannot sell the milk after this date.
If the milk has been kept refrigerated in your home, it should still
be good for a few days after the best before date.
HAVE YOU "HERD" THE LATEST?
Computerized Feeding
We know that some people are able to eat more food in a day than
other people. Well, some cows do the same! The farmer must be able
to tell how much food each individual cow needs. This is easy on a
small farm because the farmer knows each cow. But once the herd
becomes larger, the farmer may need the help of a computer to keep
track.
In some herds, each cow wears a computer chip in her collar
containing her identification. As the cow enters the feeding stall
during the day, the computer, built into the stall, scans the chip
and dispenses the proper amount and type of food for her.
Computer Dating?
No, cows do not date! But farmers do try to match their cows with
the right bulls to make good milk-producing calves. This is called
selective breeding.
Computer matching is based on the fact that a high milk-producing
cow tends to have daughters who also produce above average amounts
of milk. When this cow is paired with a bull whose daughters are
known to be good milk producers, the result is usually a high
milk-producing daughter.
When farmers want to breed their cows, they begin by listing the
traits they would like to improve in their herd such as good milk
production. The traits of every cow are listed on a computer
program. The bulls are listed according to their daughters' traits.
Farmers can then search with the computer for the cow and bull which
have the traits they want to breed in the offspring.
Because of selective breeding, a modern dairy cow now produces
far more milk than is needed for feeding her calf. The average dairy
cow today can produce about 2,526 kg more milk per year than the
average dairy cow of 30 years ago.
Computer Records
Well, cows may enjoy listening to music but this is a different
type of record. Dairy Herd Improvement is a computerized
record keeping system which helps the dairy farmers keep track of
milk production. Each month, each cow's milk is weighed and a sample
of it is sent to a lab for testing. At the lab, the milk is tested
for fat and protein content and somatic cell count. The somatic cell
count, which is a measure of white blood cells, helps to determine
the cow's udder health.
Computer reports summarize each cow's milk production and
evaluates it against a standard. Recommendations are made on how the
farmer can improve the herd's milk production and health. By using
the computerized services, a farmer is able to make good decisions
about feeding and breeding cows.
MOO TRIVIA
The largest sundae ever made was in Alberta at Edmonton Centre on
July 24, 1988 by Palm Dairies: 20,270.7 kg ice cream, 4,394.4 kg
syrup and 243.7 kg topping; in total, a 24,908.8 kg ice cream
sundae!
Cheese is actually a concentrated form of milk with the same
types of protein, calcium, vitamins and other nutrients as milk.
Speaking of milk...People who speak two languages are called
bilingual. Now you can be moolingual. Learn how to say "Milk, really
cool" in some other languages: - French: lait, tres cool - German:
milch, sehr cool - Ukrainian: moloko, douzha cool - Italian: latte,
molto cool - Spanish: leche, mucha cool - Dutch: melek, hael cool -
Chinese: nai, ho cool
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