Attention Milk Haulers!! ✌

I'm done with my route and home by 4pm usually. On occasion I have sat at the plant until late. The worst time to go to the plant is a holiday weekend. July 5th I sat at the plant over 8 hours. Yuk

 

I'm from N.Wisconsin, and the real small farms, are all gone. These mega farms up there are buying out these small farms for the land, just to get rid of the manure. Years ago, I had friends that had a milk route, picked up at some pretty backwards farms. Many times, a big part of your day was just talking to these people. Many times, you are the only person outside the farm they deal with and you can't get away from them. It's a lot better than dealing with some faceless receiver at a warehouse that hates their life to begin with, oh, and most important,,,NO PALLETS!!!!

 

I'd like to know how the short hauls operate.

Not to sway from the post.

Dairy to food plant. For instance. That's a 24/7 operation

 

Dairy IS a food plant. What you might be trying to say is delivering processed milk for sale to say Walmart DC for a bunch of stores or perhaps a truck load of pint milk to children. Those go out in smaller trucks. Divcos or whatever they call them now.

It's time sensitive. The other side of the Dairy is just as intense if not more.

Milk is sorted class A, Class B and some is deemed not waste or bad but not for people to drink and enjoy, it gets used for certain things. Milk Chocolate comes to mind. (SORRY.... you asked maybe...) It will come out of the Dairy as it was when it got there. If the Cows are doing great then you will have milk you can probably drink right there. (And people did back then... your nose will know it instantly but you don't ever do that. you are also a source of contaimant if you touch it...)

Yes I am outdated by some. The examination of my old Milk Yard where they kept the shop, bossman and trucks is not farm to farm route picking up anymore. It's sleeper tractors with long haul tankers now. So that means you might go to Cumberland today and be in Baltimore tonight. I see the old Diary has added silos, by the dozen on what was grass before and hardened since 9-11 and added lights. SO it's probably 24/7 hours now.

Many farms were erased by tarriffs imposed by Canada against American milk up north. It's cheaper by far to buy Canadian Milk even if your American dollar bought 35% more stuff in a Canada store under their exchange rate, the tarriff is still killing the farms here. Sell out, slaughter the cows (Stringy not really for beef but it can be done... among other things like medicines etc) and retire somewhere.

The cows are taken care of way better than humans are. You walk into a milking palace (Barn) and take a deep sniff after its been cleaned. Nothing bad. Even though you know the #### things leave hundreds of pounds in piles all over that field. (That is something to ponder.... munch that grass all day making that milk...)

he he he.

 

I deliver feed to a big dairy in NY. They milk 24-7-365 and as near as I can tell they ship 7 or 8 tankers a day around the clock. Do you have any 24/7 shippers and how does that work? I'm pretty sure the farm doesn't jockey trailers.

 

How much milk does one cow make in a day.

 

depends on the species, the genetics and where she is in her lactation but 50-100 lbs a day

 

Well... there is a question.

Im afraid to answer it. If you loved on it, left it the best land, kept a flawless cowpalace stall that is cooled believe it or not (Swamp coolers) and so forth with the best food (You are looking at about 100 pounds a feed per day, silage, grass, various hay etc (We fed horses twice daily, two flakes alfalfa and one fat chunk of thompson off a bale) It's the oat mash they love at noon, onery by 11 smelling a barrel cooking)

A happy cow probably 8 gallons day, milked two to three times. And the milk will be pretty good.

A onery mean cow is going to be sick very fast and it's bad. The thing is you have to milk those things. It's not something you can put off any time. They have to be milked.

Once you get milk, grade and class it then other things become possible.

 

A cow eats about 2% of its' body weight in dry matter per day. 1,000 lb cow x .02 = 20 lbs of D.M. x 1.10% moisture (for dry grass hay as an example) = 22 lbs or.....about half of a 45 lb small square bale per day

 

One more thing about dairy. It's go go go. We never stop. We had a driver come from otr. He was complaining having to drive on ice. I told him you chose the wrong line of work if you want to park the truck in bad weather. We almost never stop.