Milk is a popular product. It is drunk in its natural form and prepared from it a lot of tasty and healthy dairy products - cheeses, sour cream, kefir, fermented baked milk, cream, butter and much more. In any refrigerator there is an almost complete set of these products. So it is not for nothing that the cow in the old days was called the nurse - she still provides a fair share of the human diet.
Today, many people are returning to subsistence farming and raising cattle in order to have the freshest and most natural food on their table. But not all of them know how to properly care for the animal. What will happen if the cow is not milked? And how many times do you need to milk it? And why does the horned nurse lose her milk?
How many times a day a cow is milked
What will happen if the cow is not milked at all? Today there are farms whose owners do not eat either meat or milk. And animals are kept for their own pleasure. Of the large horses, most often, but there are also cows. They are not milked, and Burenka has no milk until a calf is born. Then she feeds him naturally - and the milk disappears.
But if they keep a burenka in order to milk it, then the calf after birth is not allowed to suck the udder. Otherwise, he will then suck out all the milk from his mother, even when he is older. Burenka is milked and part of the baby is separated, the rest is taken by people for their needs.
When the horned nurse just got hotels, she is milked 4 times a day, for each feeding of the calf. Then the number of milks is reduced.
Burenok is universally accepted to milk twice a day. There are farm and individual farms where cows are milked three times a day. It is estimated that this can give 6-7% growth in the total indicators. Is such a rise in milk yield labor costs? This can only be determined by situation.
Also, newly-minted farmers often ask what will happen to the cow if it is not milked in the morning or in the evening. Or, to put it another way, how much milk can you skip without harming the animal?
First of all, you need to understand that cows in their natural habitat would never have that much milk. People specifically raise special cattle breeds - dairy, with high milk yield and a large udder volume. And if you miss at least one milking, the cow will suffer: its udder will overflow, it will hurt, and the Burenka will be uneasy and moo.
What will happen if the cow is not milked
But sometimes people are forced, due to the fact that the burenka is lost, or because of their own stupidity, they miss several milks. So what will happen if the cow is not milked?
The suffering of the animal has already been mentioned. But with every hour the situation will become worse. Milk will begin to "burn out" in the udder - it will change its taste, possibly color and texture. You can’t drink or use such a product in any other way.
The further course of events may develop according to one of the scenarios:
- The cow will completely lose milk and will not appear until the next calving.
- The animal will begin to suffer from mastitis. This disease is fraught with the fact that cattle in case of adverse treatment is slaughtered.
- Burenka will fall. The most unfavorable outcome, rare, but quite possible.
The complete disappearance of milk is what will happen if the cow is not milked for 5 days. If less time has passed, for example, 3-4 days, you can try to maintain lactation with a decrease in the volume of the product.
How to milk a cow after a forced start
So, the cows have not been milked for several days, which is why there is less milk. But the udder still hurts, so it’s not easy to milk such a cow. The animal is milked 2-3 times a day: if the cow twitches, then it still hurts, maybe mastitis has begun. If the situation does not improve, you should invite a veterinarian.
If the cow reacts calmly to milking, but gives less milk, it needs to be well fed: highly concentrated and succulent feeds, sugar beets, potatoes, etc. It should also be drunk more. The level of previous milk yields, most likely, cannot be returned.
After a forced start, milk is poured out over several days, even if it looks and smells normal. If the milk is curdled, with clots, with blood or an unpleasant odor, you need to call a veterinarian.
Launch
Cows need a break from lactation before the next calving. What will happen if you do not milk the cow before the calf appears for a while? The animal will rest, gain strength and again will give a tasty and healthy product in large quantities. If you miss the moment when the burenka is about to start, then its milk begins to be bitter - in the natural environment, cows wean calves from the udder.
The horned nurse is stopped milking 2 months before calving. The minimum number of days is 45, sometimes the period is increased to 2.5 months. Throw milking should be gradual: do not give out the milk completely, then switch to a one-time milking, after a while quit milking at all. After 2-3 days, you can try to milk the cow for the last time.
The correct start can be judged by the decreased udder and the complete cessation of lactation.
Why does a cow not give milk
Sometimes it happens that a beloved burenka stops giving milk or the volume of its production has decreased, although the animal was well looked after and did not pass milking. This can happen for several reasons:
- Stress factor. Changes in conditions of detention, change of personnel (hands), inept milking - all this animal can react negatively, and milk yield will decrease or disappear altogether.
- Late launch. Often occurs due to ignorance of the real date of the future calving.
- Hidden chronic mastitis.
- New feed. During the adaptation period, the cow can reduce milk yield.
These are the most common causes of poor milk yield. In fact, there are a lot of them - from the banal “cow wants a bull” to very real diseases that animals suffer as often as people. So if the cause cannot be determined, you should invite a veterinarian.