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Author: Admin | 2025-04-28
Milk. The other benefit was freeing up morning chore time on the days we work.”Besides obvious savings in time and energy, once-a-day milking lowers feed costs because most OAD cows receive grain only when milking. Depending on the quality of your forage and the amount it takes your individual cow to maintain her milk supply and body condition, this ration could be as small as a couple of cups as a reward for coming in to be milked.Cow and calf health can also benefit. Many people who milk once a day do so in conjunction with a calf. In fact, share-milking is a wonderful example of three-way synergy. The calf-cow bond is strong, the calf receives the nutrients and motherly attention it needs to thrive while helping to effectively empty the udder, and the hobby farmer is not only saved the time of bottle-feeding but is also able to utilize the calf as an ally in time management and milk production, with the added bonus of ultimately providing meat, another milk cow, or income from sales.Courtesy ChickenintheRoad.comShare-milking facilitates a strong calf-cow bond in addition to other health benefits.Top Concerns: Cow Health and ProductionConcerns about OAD generally center on udder health and milk-production loss. Stacey A. Hamilton, PhD, an extension dairy specialist and pasture-based animal science instructor at the University of Missouri Southwest Research Center, reports that he has not seen increased incidents of mastitis (infection of the mammary gland or udder) in cows being milked once daily. Rather, he explains that individual genetics appear to play the largest role in a cow’s tendency to contract mastitis, though cow management, herd health and barn hygiene are also factors.While a cow might be at higher risk for mastitis when milk volume is at its peak during the first few weeks of freshening and during the drying-off period (also a time when the cow’s milk bag might become very full), it’s inaccurate to assume that every time a cow’s udder is tight and full, she’s headed for a bout of mastitis (unless the udder is in a chronic state of being overfull, at which point any bacteria present could proliferate in the stagnant milk). As a side note, Hamilton says that with a case of mastitis, in addition to treating the specific bacteria, the more often you can empty the udder, the sooner the cow will recover.He adds, “Having a calf nursing six to eight times a day plus OAD milking is going to be more effective than milking TAD, as many do.” Share-milkers can do this with ease. Others might need to milk twice or more per day until an infection clears.While it’s true that OAD milking will reduce milk volume, cutting
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