Mmm, Mmm, Milk From the Cow to the Table. How Does My Milk Get Here?

Mmm, Mmm, Milk

From the Cow to the Table.

How Does My Milk Get Here?

Where Does Milk Come From?

• Milk comes from cows.

How Do Cows Make Milk?

• Farmers grow or buy the feed cows eat.

• Cows must drink 8 gallons of water to produce 1 gallon of milk.

What Do Cows Eat?

• Cows eat:

– Corn– Hay– Grain

How Is Corn Grown?

• Farmers plow and harrow the field to prepare it for planting.

• The corn is then planted into the ground by a machine.

• In a few weeks tiny corn plants will begin to grow .

How Is The Corn Harvested?

• In the fall, the farmers chop the corn into wagons or trucks. Sometimes the corn will be picked by a special machine.

• The corn is then blown into silos, made into a large bag, or dumped into a big pile.

How Do The Cows Eat the Corn?

• The cows eat the entire corn plant; Kernels, cob, and stalk.

• The plant is chopped up and fed out to the cows.

How Is Hay Grown?

• Hay is just grass that is mixed with other plants like alfalfa, clover and timothy.

• Some hay can be just grass.

How Is The Hay Harvested?

• The hay is mowed onto the ground.

Hay

• Sometimes the farmer will chop the hay into hayledge.

Hay

• Other times, the farmer will dry the hay on the ground.

• After the hay is dried it will be baled into round or square bales.

How Is The Hay Eaten?

• The cows can either eat the hay when they are in the barn being milked or when they are out in the pasture.

• Square bales are fed out to the cows when they are in the barn. Round bales are fed out when they are in the pasture.

What About Grain?

• Most farmers buy their grain from a local feed store.

• Grain is delivered by a truck that blows it into a silo.

• Farmers then give each cow a measured amount of grain.

How Is the Cow Milked?

• Each cow is hooked up to a milking machine that milks them.

Where Does The Milk Go?

• The Milk then travels from the milking machine, through a pipeline in the barn and finally into the large bulk tank in the milk house.

What Happens Next?

• After the bulk tank is full, a milk truck will come and pick up the milk.

• Most farmers sell their milk to a co-operative; and they will process the milk to be sold.

You Finally Have Your Milk!

• After the milk leaves the plant, it is sold to the grocery stores as many of the products you enjoy.– Milk– Cheese– Yogurt – Ice Cream