Cows and Dairying01
Waupaca Record
THE COW – A MORTAGE LIFTER
She Should Be Kept in Good Health and Given Pure and Wholesome Feed
Is the cow getting the credit and care that she deserves? As the butter producing machine she will manufacture pure and wholesome milk for us, providing she is kept in good health and given pure and wholesome feed.
Have a pure milk on hand to start with, the secret is to handle and care for it so it can be made into a wholesome article of food. In making good butter we must have a good, pure, sweet and wholesome milk or cream to start with. How can you produce sweet milk and cream?
First. By feeding your cows wholesome and clean feed.
Second. By keeping cows in a healthful condition.
Third. By keeping cows in good, well-lighted, well-ventilated barns.
Fourth. By keeping cows clean and well-bedded and cleaning the barn often and hauling the manure away from the barn walls so that the cows do not have to wade in the manure.
Fifth. By milking with dry hands and clean utensils. Do not use wooden pails as the pores of the wood are the home of bad bacteria.
Sixth. Do not keep milk in the barn. Take it from the barn as soon as you are thru milking.
Seventh. Strain the milk first thru cheese cloth then thru a fine strainer.
Eighth. While you are milking keep your milk can on the outside of the barn and not on the inside, as milk absorbs odors from the barn and will be spoiled in a short time.
Ninth. When you are thru milking, if you deliver whole milk to the creamery, prepare a good water tank for our milk cans. Do not use a galvanized tank as the galvanizing will soon wear off and the water will not keep pure. I have noticed when handling milk that if it has been kept in galvanized tanks it does not keep as well as when kept in a good wooden tank.
Tenth. Build a good house around your tank with a good roof and sides, with windows and swinging doors covered with screens so that nothing can get inside the house when the doors and windows are open. In warm weather keep the doors open on both sides of your house so that fresh air can get in freely. Have the house located so that you can pump water directly from the well into the milk tank and from there let it flow into the stock tank. In this way you can keep milk sweet in summer and winter.
Eleventh. Use bright cans. Do not use old rusty cans for sweet milk as in the rust you have a place where bacteria can lodge and fermentation will soon start in the milk while it is warm. When you set your can in cold water, stir the milk a few minutes so it will be thoroly cooled. Then in putting on the cover, leave a small air vent in order that the gases that arise may escape.
Twelfth. If you are using a hand separator, keep it in a good clean pace; not in the barn behind the cow for the hens to roost on and for the big rooster to use as a pulpit when he awakens his feathered friends in the morning.
Thirteenth. Skim the milk as soon as possible after it has been drawn from the cows. Skim a cream from twenty-five to thirty per cent fat, as the heavier you skim your cream, the better it will keep.
Fourteenth. Wash the separator after every skimming. Wash with a brush and do not use a rag. After washing scald the parts with boiling water. If the separator is handled in this way the parts will dry quickly and will not rust.
Fifteenth. Do not pour warm cream into cold cream as both will be spoiled.
Sixteenth. Deliver milk and cream to the creamery every day in summer and at least every third or fourth day in winter.
Seventeenth. Deliver your milk and cream to the creamery early. Be prompt. Do not string along any old time of the day as causes trouble for the butter maker in ripening the cream to a uniform acidity and the result will be a poor quality of butter which means a poor price for the farmer.
Eighteenth. Keep a good butter maker and pay him well for his work if he is a good one. If he is a poor one, discharge him, as he is losing money for you every day.
Nineteenth. Keep our creamery in good condition – good buildings, good drainage, good refrigerator and good machinery.
Twentieth. Test your butter maker well by bringing him clean, sweet milk and cream and I am sure that dairying will pay you a good profit.
I am making butter at a small cooperative creamery handling both milk and cream. I have been with this company for five years and am now commencing on my sixth year Last year we made nearly 8,700 pounds of butter which netted the farmers 28-1/2 cents for their butterfat on an average for the whole. For January, 1908 they received 35 cents per pound for their fat, and February, 33 cents. So you see this winter has been a good one for dairying.
We
are located nine miles from any station and farmers have to do all their own
hauling. But this makes it very handy
for their milk and cream to be manufactured into butter at home. The patrons are very prompt in bringing their
milk and cream as is shown by the prices we are getting at
So. Farmers, produce a good article of milk and cream and build up a business of which you can be proud.