Do Cows Like Being Milked?
- mackenziehartung
- Jun 3
- 2 min read
Sure, our cows live a peaceful life on the pasture year-round, usually spending all day out there unless the weather is bad. But how do we know if our cows are happy with being milked? It is, after all, a necessary part of what we do here at Maple Hill!
All clues point to one answer: Our cows absolutely enjoy being milked. Cows come into the parlor willingly, and some even start letting down their milk as soon as they enter the shelter. Some of our cows even have preferences for a side and stall in the milking parlor.
We also know our cows enjoy their time being milked because of their demeanor while they’re in the milking parlor. Cows in our parlor are calm and quiet, blissfully chewing their cud the entire time through the process: while their teats are carefully cleaned, while their milking unit is put on their udders, while letting their milk down and while being milked. A sensor in the unit determines when the cow has finished being milked and takes it off of her. A final dip of an iodine-based solution keeps bacteria from entering our cows teat ends and she calmly leaves the parlor to drink some water, eat some hay, or lay down for a while in a stall, still chewing her cud, until it is time for her to go back out to pasture.
It’s actually a fairly uneventful process, but crucial one. We love that our cows don’t think twice about this process, that they are calm and content the entire time. And we believe the quality of our milk is proof of it: the incredible nutrition and taste isn’t from a 100% grass-fed diet alone (although that’s a huge part of it). It’s also because our cows are genuinely happy. That means the world to us, because that’s what nature intended.
