Milking Cattle Once Part of Every Farm

By Paul F. Long
Published on January 25, 2011
article image
From the collection of Tony Mitchell DeZago
A vintage window display of Primrose cream separators.

Some will recall those bucolic days when there were dusty country lanes and rolling meadows, meadows which sustained the farm milch cows. Morning and night, especially during the summer, it was the chore of the farm boy to herd the milking cattle into the barnyard. In winter, the chore of bringing in the cattle from pasture was not necessary, as the livestock were fed and came up to the barnyard for their food.
Even though being roused from sleep at 5:30 or so on a summer morning to “go get the cows” was sometimes unpleasant, especially when the dew-laden grass wet our britches to the knees, it had its rewards. Never were the pastures and meadows so beautiful as when dewy-pearled in the first rays of the morning sun.

While milking machines were not unknown, few could afford the labor-saving device. In fact, until the advent of the REA in the early 1940s, few farmers could afford electricity to power such machines. On most farms, the “milking machine” was the farmer and several sons and daughters, and milking was done by hand.

While many farms had milking barns with stanchions, we milked our cows in the corrals in good weather, and in a straw shed or a frame lean-to addition in inclement weather. Old five-gallon buckets were used as milking stools if wooden stools were not available. Often we milked without a stool, merely squatting and holding the bucket between our legs, a feat which required a bit of rural finesse.

When the milking was finished, the foaming buckets of milk were carried to the milk house. On our farm, one end of a long, enclosed porch housed the cream separator.

The cream separator was a machine which separated the cream from the milk. Milk was poured into a large tank at the top of the separator and let out into the separator bowl by means of a valve or spout at the base of the tank. The milk, as it passed the rapidly rotating bowl, was separated according to weight by centrifugal force into cream and skimmed milk. The cream came out of one spout and was caught in a cream can. The milk came through a second spout, and was caught in the emptied milk buckets. The power to operate the separator was generally furnished, sometimes reluctantly, by one of the boys of the farm family.

The cream obtained from separating the milk was used for farm cooking, and to sell. The buckets of skimmed milk were carried back to the barnyard to feed bucket calves, or down to the hog lot. Some of the skim milk was mixed with wheat shorts (a by-product of wheat milling) or sorghum grain to provide feed for the swine.

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