I recently completed an assignment to visit a dairy, milk a cow, and ask
lots of questions. :-) Cal Poly San Luis Obispo is close to me, and they
have the largest dairy degree program in the country, so I was able to
interview someone exceptionally knowledgeable, a professor in the field. We
talked for almost 4 hours straight............  it was fun.

Some very interesting sidelights:

When asked about what was considered most important for good milk
production, their number one factor was *nutrition*. Many of you already
know that dairy feed is quite a refined science, but still I was not
prepared for just how impactful it is; they actually reformulate the feed
weekly according to production feedback. For a cow, the most important
nutrients are roughage, calcium, phosophorus, and adequate calories. A
second important factor was genetics-- oh well, we can't change that one.
<g>

I was particularly fascinated to learn that the cream content of milk was
directly related to roughage; less roughage, less cream. Now there is a lot
of difference between humans and cows, but I wonder if that has any
implications for humans? Our American diet tends to be low in roughage; I
know mine is.

We also talked about mastitis. For the dairy herdsman, sanitation and
optimal health are the most important things, and they work hard at both. IF
only human moms were given the same detailed attention!  The concept of
plugged ducts and all the good stuff we face is pretty uncommon for them, as
the bovine mammary gland is huge and the ductal openings much larger and
hard to clog up. Interestingly, they usually see that weird, "gloppy" (they
call it gargot) mucousy milk *before* clinical symptoms of mastitis set in,
whereas we see this mostly after we figure it out.

More mastitis trivia: mastitis is known to cause two changes in the
composition of cow's milk: it impairs the ability to produce milk because of
changes in lactose and protein processing, and it also becomes salty. The
second we have known, but I did not understand the reason until now: when
there is an infection, the body marshals the emergency army and the white
blood cells come "crashing through" to the rescue, sort of breaking down
tissue as they trample through. This allows leakage of other things,
including the higher salts of the blood, into the milk.

I have heard of milk fever in women, but assumed that it was related to
early fullness/engorgement when the milk came in. In the dairy industry, it
has a definite meaning-- peri-parturient paresis, hypo-calcemia, considered
a nutritional disorder. The cows are bred and milked most of their life
cycle, and are pushed to maximum production. Sometimes a cow will have
difficulty drawing calcium from her stores fast enough, and the result is
milk fever. She becomes lethargic and cold.

Last but not least, Mammary trivia: What's the difference between teats and
nipples? Teats are located on mammary glands that are separated by
suspensary ligaments; nipples are not.

Lisa, who had a fun and educational day

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