🏡 On the farm: feed, grazing and milking

On the farm: feed, grazing and milking covers the first stage of milk's journey: what the animals eat, where they graze, how they are milked and what happens to the milk in the first few hours. According to FAO, around 150 million households worldwide are involved in milk production.

On small farms the diet is based on natural pasture, cut grass, crop residues and fodder crops, while in Asia and the Near East it is mostly cereal straw. Stores of hay and silage make it possible to keep milking when fresh feed runs short. Dairy animals drink a lot of water, so access to it has a strong effect on milk yield.

Cows are milked at least twice a day all year round, and switching to three milkings raises the yield noticeably: a high-yielding cow gives up to 60 kg of milk a day. Milk let-down is triggered by the hormone oxytocin. Ideally a lactation lasts 305 days; towards its end the yield falls to 25–50% of the peak, and before the next calving there is a dry period of up to 60 days.

According to FAO, most smallholders in developing countries milk by hand, often with the calf present, while medium and large farms use a milking machine. In the EU the teats and udder have to be clean before milking, and milk from animals with udder disease or under treatment is kept out of the food chain.

Right after milking the milk is chilled in a bulk milk cooler: in the EU to no more than 8 °C if it is collected daily and no more than 6 °C if not. Raw cow's milk in the EU may contain at most 100,000 microorganisms and 400,000 somatic cells per ml.