Something to ponder, maybe...

Rural areas in many parts of the world have significant populations of cows on the edge of major cities for town milk supply. As I commute from city to city passing through dairy areas I am reminded that milking has to occur everyday within about six hours of milking time. If not carried out on time, more or less, cows get mastitis and will die. No cows, no milk supply, no milk supply and a loss of a major health food.

Seems to me that every farm with milking cows must have a backup power system for running milking machines and lighting systems. I suspect that many do.

I have searched and been unable to locate any info on rural processing industries.

So my question is:

what is the preparedness status of rural processing industries such as milk treatment stations?

-- Bob Barbour (r.barbour@waikato.ac.nz), February 23, 1999

Answers

Squeeze dem fingers raw!
Very good question. Dairy products used in so many things.
How many minutes can milk stand before it has to be refrigerated?
This is one big mess we hadn't put our doomer-lazer on yet ...

xxxxxxx xxxxxxx xxxxxxx

-- Leska (allaha@earthlink.net), February 23, 1999.

I think this problem was a big one in the legendary ice storm last year, in the NE and Canada. Leska, I bet you'll be able to track it down!

-- Old Git (anon@spamproblems.com), February 23, 1999.

maybe some of you worrying about post y2k jobs had better learn to milk!! Its hell...been there done that! Dairies are now milking 3 times a day, thats every 8 hours and that means that the machines and milkers( people who attach and unattach milking machines, strip out the cows by hand, etc) are going 24 hours a day. All dairies have had to contend with power outages and some do have generators, but neighbors and anyone who can milk are welcome. Most of that milk will be dumped out in the field for fertilizer as it cannot be cooled in the tanks. It is nothing for a dairy to throw away thousands of gallons of milk a day under these circumstances. Another circumstance that is not all uncommon is that penicillen gets into the milk. The cows have their routine and place in line and even though they may be receiving antibiotics, they are in the milking line going through the parlor. If the milker doesn't see the tag on the cow and runs that cow's milk in with the rest of it, the whole batch gets thrown out. The PPM of penicillin that shows up in a test can be so small that you can't believe it.

-- Taz (Tassie@AOL.com), February 23, 1999.

on the other hand......if you are close to a dairy when the lights go out, I am sure you can have all the free milk you want. Just bring you own jugs and prepare to make cheese the next day and eat lots of whipping crean. YUM...and don't forget the butter. All it takes is a jar with a tight lid and some muscle! Yum again.

-- Taz (Tassie@AOL.com), February 23, 1999.

I've heard that many farmers have generators that run off their tractor's PTO shaft. They just have to have enough fuel on hand (generally no problem for a couple hour outage.

This is actually one of my strategies for Y2K...I hope to find a dairy farmer that will sell me an option on a couple milk cows. If the power goes out, I get the cow (he'll have his hands full). If the power stays on, he gets the cow.

Just need to know a little more about milking. I've heard that anyone that regularly milks a cow has a handshake that will break bones.

-- Jim Smith (JDSmith1@Hotmail.com), February 23, 1999.

"Boy this fresh milk tastes great" "We don't have a milk cow, we just have a bull"

Rewatched "Kingpin" a few nights ago, couldn't resist.

-- Bill (y2khippo@yahoo.com), February 23, 1999.

I've heard that dairy farmers are investing in dual purpose cows. Say they give milk and cookies! Wonder about the cookies though!

-- Mark Hillyard (foster@inreach.com), February 23, 1999.

Bill,

I must have a sick mind or a slow night! Funny guy!

-- Mark Hillyard (foster@inreach.com), February 23, 1999.

From the heart of dairy country, let me tell you:

Many farmers DO have generators run by tractors. Many, probably not most. They can not run the tractors continuously for very long (days) without using a tremendous amount of fuel: tractors are not especially fuel efficient or designed to run continuously at basically idle speed. Also milk storage on the farm is usually not more than 2 days - some big farms get milk picked up after every milking!

Most dairy plants, at least in Wisconsin, DO NOT have genrator backup. Plus there is a host of other problems.

So, to summarize, if the power goes out many farmers will still be able to milk (if they have a generator and enough fuel). After that the system REALLY gets bogged down.

Specific answer: If the power goes down most processing plants (close to all) are down .

-- Jon Johnson (narnia4@usa.net), February 23, 1999.

History tells us that cows can be milked by hand. It is slow work.

But even if the cows can be milked (and bad news for them if they're not milked) the milk can't be refrigerated without power. It doesn't take long for milk to sour, it hits the pail at close to the cow's body temperature. And how many here have ever drunk raw milk? (Raw milk is milk that hasn't been pasteurized.)

From HHS paper on processing food:

it is clear that many food-borne pathogens are fecal in origin (Rampling, 1996), it not being possible on a commercial basis to milk cows aseptically. Fecal contamination of raw milk, no matter how slight or infrequent, is therefore inevitable [...] In addition to potential Fecal contamination, pathogens may also be excreted into the milk directly from the udder. Correctly-controlled milk Pasteurization kills such bacteria. Pasteurization was designed to destroy the vegetative pathogens that may be found in raw milk and few do not recognize the part that Pasteurization of milk played in dramatically reducing the 19th century diseases such as milk-borne tuberculosis, brucellosis and typhoid fever.

Among the bacteria sometimes present in milk (but killed by pasteurization) are Listeria, Brucella, and Escherichia.

-- Tom Carey (tomcarey@mindspring.com), February 23, 1999.

-- Tom Carey (tomcarey@mindspring.com),

That is exactly why I was concerned about the dual purpose cows!

-- Mark Hillyard (foster@inreach.com), February 23, 1999.

And how many here have ever drunk raw milk?

As someone raised on a dairy farm, let me tell you, you don't know what milk tastes like if you haven't tasted raw milk. When I first started school and tasted milk from a carton for the first time, I wanted to barf!

As far as milking cows by hand, it is certainly possible, but let me point out that back when farmers milked all cows by hand, most did not own more than a dozen or so cows. Now herds typically number in the hundreds, and they each give many times more milk per cow than their ancestors did in days gone by. Milking one cow by hand, would give most of us a very sore wrist after the 4th or 5th gallon, including me. I have done it, but it is very strenuous labor.

We had a PTO-driven generator when we farmed, as did many farmers in that area. But if the milk truck was unable to get through because of a blizzard shutting the roads, after about 3 days we were in the position of dumping milk, which is never any fun. I can remember opening the valve and watching hundreds of gallons of milk go down the drain. Farmers will be doing a lot of that if the dairies are unable to take and process their milk.

-- Tom Knepper (thomas_knepper@intuit.com), February 24, 1999.

Milk maids? This forum always makes me nostalgic.

"Our slavery on the dairy farms continued for more than two years, seven days a week, three hundred sixty-five days a year, minus one day for me, when I was allowed to stay in bed and barf in privacy. I didnt know how many days Little Brother was allowed to have, to have privacy. I was grateful for this day, for we were in the prime of our lives and intellectually curious; a time during which one washes thousands of teats and grunts around tons of cow products. This was especially appealing during the Pacific Northwest rain that drizzled from September through August, when cow bellies were caked with mud and dung; their active tails also.

Milk cartons claimed that the milk came from contented cows and was grade A, but they did not stroke the egos of the milkers. They gave no credits such as Proudly Harvested by X.

During the cold months, the frost and the chlorinated water dried and split the meat of my fingers. I could see the white bones and barely hold a pencil. When I told H. that I was ready to scream, she instructed me to "put on some bag balm." I greased my hands with cow grease and they improved over time; but I still absorbed enough stuff to develop corrosive humor."

-- Not Again! (seenit@ww2.com), February 24, 1999.

I can hardly wait for our future:

* Red brick homes and drainage ditches paralleled both sides of the road. Thick thatch and clay tiles covered their roofs, as well as the farmhouses that ringed this village. In the cow barns attached to the front of the farmhouses, a few Holsteins resided all winter and helped heat these human-animal shelters. Manicured cubic manure piles adorned the front yards, growing bigger by the day, while chickens foraged about them. This enhanced the aroma of the nearby kitchens with fresh country air.

Inside each barn was a bench with a hole in it. It stank. To answer a call, one walked, but not in slippers, past the rear of the cows to make deposits there. At least one did not have to go outside when it was cold, or into swarms of mosquitoes when it was hot. Flies hatched in the piles and the holes; mosquitoes hatched in the moors, puddles and ponds. And there were many. When the wind was just right the farmers spread this waste over the fields surrounding the village. To make it smell good.

Next to each house was a well. Water was drawn by dipping a bucket hooked to a pole. Some houses had hand pumps. Several up and down strokes delivered unchlorinated, bacteria-rich water for drinking, cooking and bathing. *

-- Not Again! (seenit@ww2.com), February 24, 1999.

Our family's dairy farm is 12 miles away and we're in the heart of NY dairy country. It's amazing that some farmers don't routinely have generators, though most do (mainly PTO). Most milk is picked up daily, as already discussed on this thread. There are now about 300 farms compared to 10,000 forty years ago. Anyway, our farm has a 16KW Imperial diesel generator installed, with 3,000 gallons set aside.

One thing I do expect, at least where we are, is that local farms that can supply milk/vegetables/meat will be given very positive treament by the surrounding towns, even (especially if)TEOTWAWKI. There is a long history of "honoring the farming community" and a healthy awareness that you don't shoot the people who are feeding you.

-- BigDog (BigDog@duffer.com), February 24, 1999.

Talking to a rural group about Y2K in a community forum next week. I will report on the percentage of generators in the rural sector in NZ.

-- Bob Barbour (r.barbour@waikato.ac.nz), February 24, 1999.