Down on the Farm: Milking and milk storage

On the Hoard’s Dairyman Farm, we use the finest facilities and the newest technology to bring Guernsey milk from cow to consumer.

Cow in milking robot station.

It’s undeniable: robots are taking over the world as we know it. This is hyperbole, of course. Humans still have control over the future of production (for now). But what does a technological revolution mean for agriculture and for dairying in particular? 

One way the Hoard’s Dairyman Farm continues to practice the utmost cow care while still providing jobs to workers and milk to distributors is by combining the latest tech with tried-and-true methods. 

In May of 2019, the first Hoard’s Dairyman Farm cows were milked using four DeLaval voluntary milking systems. This system is considered “voluntary” because it is ready and available for milking whenever a cow chooses to be milked (which, on average, is 2.8 times a day on our farm). Each cow has a tag around her neck that contains information such as her name, number, steps, and milk production. If a cow is eligible to be milked when she approaches the stall, the gate will open, allowing her to enter. A robotic arm then cleans and stimulates the teats, attaches the teat cups, milks the cow, and stores this data in the system and on the cow’s identification tag. 

This voluntary milking system resides in the newest freestall barn on the farm. Nearby is a traditional milking parlor adjacent to the original freestall barn, where another group of cows is milked. These cows are walked to the parlor twice a day to be milked, and a farm employee uses the same wash, stimulate, and attach method as the robotic, voluntary system. Most of the milking herd are housed in the former barn and are milked using the robots. The remaining cows are milked in the parlor at 4:30 a.m. and 4:30 p.m. daily. 

Milking parlour

The milk never touches air. The second it’s retrieved, the milk enters a pipeline system that sends it to a stainless-steel tank for storage, where milk must be kept at 38°F. A milk truck arrives daily to collect the milk for delivery to a creamery or distributor. The pipelines and milk tanks are cleaned daily. 

Sitting at 4.76% fat and 3.52% protein, our milk is not only gathered with care and precision, but it is highly nutritious, too. Next time you bite into Hoard’s Dairyman Creamery Gouda, you’ll know exactly how that milk (and cheese) came to be. 

If robots pose a threat, it may only be that of proving more useful than we’d care to admit. Voluntary milking aside, what’s not to applaud about making farmers’ jobs easier and dairies more efficient? Maybe the future isn’t so scary — not for the cow, anyway.