“So what did you guys do while in Europe for 6 months?”
“Well, we visited seven amazing countries, saw tons of great things, and met lots of wonderful people. Oh, and we saw cows being milked by robots.”
Certainly we’re the ONLY travel blog to EVER feature the words “Robotic Cow Milking” in a blog title. How did this come about, you might ask? Way back in September, while hanging out in Silvermines, Ireland’s one and only pub, we met and chatted with a local (which is easy in Ireland, one of the reasons we love that entire country) chap who owned a dairy farm. As a teen, he never planned to be a dairy farmer, and in fact went and lived in the states for a few years. When he came home, he went to work on his grandfather’s farm. When his grandfather passed away, he inherited the farm. Now, years later, he couldn’t imagine a different life. It’s surprisingly enjoyable to talk dairy farming with an Irishman over a Guinness.
We learned a lot about dairy farming from our mate in Ireland. He told us that cows wear RFID tags that identify them to computer-controlled gates. If it’s time for the cow to be milked, the computer opens the gate for them and they get a cookie. Over time the cows learn how often they can approach the gate and be milked. Then he told us about completely automated, robotic cow-milkers. In awe (oddly enough), we asked if he had one. He replied, “No, I milk ’em the old-fashioned way.” In our minds, that meant sitting on a little stool and massaging the cow’s udder, left-right, left-right. Turns out the “old-fashioned” way means hooking them up a milking machine.
Fast-forward to Turkey. On our Aegean Blue Cruise, among our great new friends were Brian and Debbie from Scotland. Did you notice the shirt Brian’s wearing in that blog? Brian, it turns out, is in the dairy industry. Perhaps one of the reasons we hit it off so well is that I was nicely educated in the state-of-the-art in robotic cow-milking thanks to our Irish pal. So when we came to England, not too far from where Brian and Debbie live in Southern Scotland, we went to visit. They treated us to a wonderful, home-cooked lunch with great conversation. Then they showed us around their town and the nearby coast. Then Brian said, “Would you like to tour a dairy farm and see one of those robotic cow milking machines?”
Queue the music from Ferris Bueller’s Day Off…”Oh yeah.”
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| A Cow Being Milked a Robot |
So in case you’ve stayed up at night wondering how cows are milked nowadays (and who doesn’t), here’s how it goes the robotic way: the system identifies the cow by reading those little RFID ear tags. If it’s time for that cow to be milked again, it opens the gate and lets the cow enter the stall. The cow loves to enter the stall because she knows there’s cow-candy in there for her.
As she starts to nibble on some cow crack, the robot swings an arm under her udder and gives it a good, disinfecting wash. Then, with the aid of a laser guide, the robotic arm locates the teats and lifts a suction cup milker up on to each and suction is applied. Luscious, fresh, full-fatted milk begins to flow, and the computer measure the cow’s milk output. As the output begins to decrease on a teat, the robot removes the suction cup milker and disinfects it. Once the milking is complete, the stall is opened and the cow is shocked with 40,000 volts to make them leave. Not really: I think the machine just takes the treats away and they decide to “blow this popsicle stand” (as my buddy Ty used to say).
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| Fresh Milk Flowing |
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| 12,000 Liters of Fresh Milk Waiting To Be Made Into Useful Stuff Like Cheddar and Ice Cream and Butter |
When traveling, you just never know where your next great memory is going to come from.
