Talk:Dairy farming

message: I think this page should have a large segment of the content reassigned to the milking machine article, and then heavily interlink. Vaarok (talk) 00:05, 29 January 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Untagged Discussion 

message: Use the search term "OECD Agricultural Outlook Tables" on the site:http://www.oecd.org and 2005 now appears to be an xls rather than html file.
http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/55/44/32980897.xls
I have not compared data to confirm this however.
The 2008 outlook is now available; OECD Agricultural Outlook: 2003-2008
http://www.oecd.org/document/9/0,3343,en_2649_201185_4486473_1_1_1_1,00.html  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Strider22 (talk • contribs) 03:56, 2 March 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  dead link 

message: I would like to see more information regarding the fact that NZ has a majority pasture based system compared to its Northern Hemisphere counterparts which use a more supplement based system. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 203.211.87.230 (talk • contribs) .
Hmmm... Point taken, this has come and gone in the article a few times!
Care is needed as it tends to sound as if the intention is to denigrate the production methods and herd mangement techniques of other countries.
The casual viewer will likely get a negative impression of dairy products and production methods in general - what works well in one climate may not be the most suitable system for another part of the world . 4wd 21:38, 1 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  dairy farming - variations between countires 

message: I removed the following recent addition because it seems unlikely:
Many farms in the US provide cows with a growth hormoneknown as "BST" or "rBGH" to increase milk production. This supplement works by stimulating the pituitary gland of the cow into the belief that it is springtime and precipitating the so-called "spring surge" of heightened production. A similar but less pronounced effect can be produced by setting barn lighting on timers to provide fourteen hours of light and ten hours of darkness, again convincing the cow that it is springtime. 
My only claims to dairy expertise are having driven a milk truck for a summer, and a silver cup awarded to my great grandfather for best quality milk at the Western Washington Fair in 1927. However, I do know that mammalian somatotropin is produced by the pituitary gland and the target tissues are bones and other organs and tissues in the body, and that the pituitary is not site of regulation of circadian and annual physiologic rhythms (the hypothalamus is far more important). Somatotropin is closely related to prolactin, which stimulates mammalian breast cells to make milk. It seems highly unlikely that the mechanism by which bST amplifies milk production is by a direct action on the pituitary to induce a shift of an annual biorhythm. However, if you can produce a source, I will gladly admit my ignorance and thank you for the education. In absence of a source, this sounds like a "rural legend", to coin a phrase. alteripse 03:35, 7 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Never mind, I've updated the number and included an updated reference.N.McGill (talk) 21:38, 27 January 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: bST: reason for removing text

message: Does anyone have experience enough of the recent robotic milking sytems to put something together?
Most of the problems seem to have been solved and there are many herds in teh UK, Holland, Denmark and more using two or three robotic milking crates.
Running for several hours daily they can be effectively unattended, the machine will send text messgae to the farmer if aproblem arises. (4wd 22:27, 27 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Robotic Milking 

message: Grew up on a dairy farm (12 cows) so read this with fascination--one of the best articles I've seen, but, where's the discussion on milk inspection, trout in the milk and all that?  Bharshaw 21:01, 30 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Milk Inspectors

message: It is stated that the average herd size in New Zealand is 600 cows. I looked up herd size in New Zealand on google. NZ Large Herd Association gives 315 as the average size. Other sites give numbers of less than 315 and as low as 229. I doubt that the average size is 600 cows, and probably is at most around half that number.
TheCorporation 07:14, 22 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Median could be around 600.  Jav43 22:31, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

text: Yes, having cattle begin milking after calving is normal :).  Having heifers calve at about 2 years is close to average in the US too, although the average is shifting toward 22 months (breeding around 13 months, depending on heifer weight at 13 months).  Jav43 22:30, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

text: To quote from http://www.dairyinsight.co.nz/careers/di-profile.php "The average herd size has more than doubled in the last twenty years to 322 cows in the 2005/06 season. 15.1% of all herds now have more than 500 cows." Sounds about right. Verve rat (talk) 09:36, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

text: Average herd size in Vermont is 100. Can't distinguish from the statistics between family and corporate but there aren't too many corporate in the state.Student7 23:48, 28 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: That's the same as the average for the US as a whole. Jav43 15:12, 13 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Average herd size 

message: Currently (17Aug06)this section seems bogged down in unecessary details of how a teat is squeezed. Could do with rewriting in a much less technical way.
4wd 23:03, 16 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: The milking operation

message: The following very sensible and mostly accurate paragraph (based on my own experience on a 120-head dairy farm which used a double-six herringbone parlor and had one of the first pipeline systems in Minnesota):
"Dairy farmers, their employees, and their families sometimes drink the unpastuerised milk produced on their farm. However, in some cases it is healthier to drink milk that has been prepared for consumer use by pastuerisation. This is because 'Raw' Milk contains bacteria and other organisms that eventually cause spoilage. Milk is routinely sampled on collection and any that fails tests for bacteria and antibiotic residue will be rejected by dairies for public consumption and even for industrial uses.
was deleted wholesale by an editor who supported the change simply with a POV claim that "drinking unprocessed milk is very UNCOMMON among dairy producers" or some such. Granted there are a few typos but dipping a (well-sanitized) bucket of milk out of the bulk tank is and has been a common practice on the dairy farms I am familiar with. It also stands to reason that most dairy producers in underdeveloped countries would drink their own unprocessed milk -- someone could do the math on the capacity of processing facilities around the world vs. the amount of production.
Granted the above is based largely on my own POV. However, this whole article is unsourced and unreferenced so it seems strange that one POV just replaced another without being challenged. This whole article could use a lot of work.ClearwaterAg 02:39, 31 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Why was statement on drinking unpasteurised milk deleted? 

message: This article desperately needs its sources cited. I gave up adding  because there are simply too many statements that require this. The text could also use a major cleaning, removing additional comments that are best meant as  so that editors, not readers, can see it.  Seicer (talk) (contribs) 00:29, 31 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Citing sources and cleanup 

message: Apologies for the multiple comments inserted as italics. I have gone back and converted these to s with comments as suggested. Speaking as someone with a dairy farming background (120 head in a relatively modern setup for the mid-1970s) the article seems to have been written by contributors with a good knowledge of the business, but considerable work is needed to add citations for the facts they may have taken as basic knowledge, and to balance some of the bits on competition which appear to be geared to particular national perspectives.ClearwaterAg 02:39, 31 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Comments and citations needed 

message: A farmer with a modern milking installation such as a large herringbone or rotary parlour serving 16 or 24 cows at a time would be capable of milking around 300-500 cows per hour[citation needed]. Farmers in New Zealand aim to milk the whole herd in under two hours twice a day[citation needed] so that the animals get the maximum time in their pasture. Farmers in other countries usually have smaller plants and 150–300 per hour is more likely.
I think these figures are wrong, but I don't have cites available.  Could someone investigate this?  (I happen to know that a double-16 parallel parlor (serving 32 cows) will milk about 150 cows/hour max (12 min per side).  300-500 cows per hour is a ridiculous figure.)  
Also, the part about New Zealand milking a herd in under two hours neglects two considerations:  a) a farm with multiple herd groups and b) the size of the herd.  Without explaining those points, that figure is very fuzzy.  Thoughts? Jav43 19:19, 9 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Given that these figures are not attributed to any source, I'd just go ahead and delete them outright if you think they're dubious. - Schneelocke 20:34, 20 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I deleted them and tried to provide some enhanced explanation.  Jav43 18:23, 18 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Milking Speed 

message: It would be interesting to have some more detail on the economics of dairy farming.  I recently heard  that the wholesale and retail prices of milk are federally regulated in the United States.  This is rather unusual for an American consumer good, and I doubt most people realize it, so it would be interesting to explain. -- Beland 05:00, 18 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: We need more on economics (as well as inspections. See comment above in another section). These would be country specific. For example, in the US futures are 50% higher for August 2007 (as of May)($18+/hundred) than they have been over the past 12 years ($12/hundred). This is for "Class III" milk which I can't explain nor can Wikipedia at this juncture. All country specific to the US.Student7 02:57, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Economics 

message: #REDIRECT [A good reference for dairy production data (including import, consumption and export) is the USDA ERS at http://www.fas.usda.gov/psdonline/psdDownload.aspx It takes a bit of playing around with exel and pivot tables to extract it, but it's all there. New Zealand seems indeed to be the largest exporter (according to that data). However, depending on how one converts dry milk powder into liquid milk equivalents the EU25 could actually be a larger exporter. Didn't do the math.]
New Zealand (fonterra) is the largest exporter of Dairy products in the world. Fonterra which is a co-op is owned by it NZ suppliers( share rate stipulated a $4.52/share supplier must hold 1 share per kgms produced)www.fonterra.com. Fonterra also ownes and or opperates 60% of Australia's production. New Zealand only consumes +/-5% of its milk production 95% is exported  — Preceding unsigned comment added by A nz Farmer (talk • contribs) 22:30, 26 September 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Data on milk production, import and export 

message: "Dairy farming is a class of agricultural, or more properly, an animal husbandry enterprise, raising female cattle, goats, or other lactating animals for long-term production of milk, which may be either processed on-site or transported to a dairy factory for processing and eventual retail sale. Most dairy farms sell the male calves born by their cows, usually for veal production, or breeding depending on quality of the Bull calf, rather than raising non-milk-producing stock. Many dairy farms also grow their own feed, typically including corn, alfalfa, and hay. This is fed directly to the cows, or is stored as silage for use during the winter season. Additional dietary supplements are added to the feed to increase quality milk production" 
Why during the bold scentence does it specifically highlight on a dairy farm with cows when it was previously talking about dairy farms in generall, it seems that "calves" and Bul calf would be better replaced with more generic terms (e.g. Male animal)as should veal so that it is clear that this article is about dairy farming in generall and not just with cows 79.67.52.190 19:17, 17 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  First Paragraph 

message: I just thought I'd point out, before everyone becomes involved in their respective countries' "league table positions", that this is simply a reproduction of OECD figures for the moment, and that I do realise that the EU cannot take up 3 places, let alone the first two, but I do intend to expand on EU production, which should sort this out. Tom 15:44, 29 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: List of Countries

message: This article has no mention of any animal other than cow.  I believe a large part of the World's population gets their milk from Goats and Sheep and Water buffalo are not unheard of, even in the West.--Doug.(talk • contribs) 04:33, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Missing species? 

message: The following hatnote was recently added: '"Dairy farm" redirects here. For the retail company in Asia, see Dairy Farm International Holdings.' I deleted it; subsequently re-added by JHunterJ. Part of my confusion was that dairy farm goes to this article and dariy Farm (note the capital F) goes to the Dairy Farm International article.  Also, the hatnote unnecessarily highlights Dairy Farm International for a rather minor reason.  JHunterJ refered to WP:HN as reason for adding, but WP:HN seems to argue against. Mirboj (talk) 09:43, 4 February 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Dairy farm redirects here, and people looking for Dairy Farm may not type the capital F, so WP:HN argues for it: " or a related template can be used when an unambiguous article name is redirected to from an ambiguous term".  The hatnotes are an alternative to the situation I found: Dairy farm and Dairy Farm redirecting to  Dairy farm (disambiguation), so that nobody would reach this page who didn't explicitly click on the link from the dab page. I felt that little-f Dairy farm should redirect here instead. -- JHunterJ (talk) 12:29, 4 February 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Is "dairy farm" hatnote necessary? 

message: This article is okay but it is way too text-heavy. My father still (STILL) milks a 35-cow dairy in northwest Wisconsin using four milkers and a pipeline in a stanchion barn, so I'll see about uploading some pictures and video of the pipeline milking process.
Also he's got the old Surge bucket milker in storage, plus a mothballed Surge vacuum pump, but all the rubber is cracked and rotten by now. Perhaps I can talk him into getting it working again, if I buy all the new rubber bits for the system.
Maybe I could get pictures and video of a modern parlor as well, from some farming cousins.
DMahalko (talk) 00:16, 15 October 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  This article really needs some images and video 

message: This article is NPOV because it is written from the assumption (false) that dairy farming is dairy cow farming.  It overlooks other animals kept for milk, particularly goats and sheep.  --Una Smith (talk) 20:20, 16 July 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: That's already covered by the  tag.  is primarily meant for situations where an opinion is being over- or under-represented, rather than where and article is simply missing detail. (Also, "NPOV" stands for "neutral point of view", which is what we're looking for. We want articles to be "NPOV".) Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 17:02, 10 August 2009 (UTC)
replies: text:  I've re-tagged with a more specific cleanup template. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 17:05, 10 August 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  NPOV 

message: The new addition of health was good. It did, however, point up the need for some kind of reorganization. We're getting too many separate subtitles at the same level in no particular sequence. Student7 (talk) 23:08, 30 November 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Organization

message: Blcknd and Vaarok - can you folks please add references for the new material which you've inserted? This article is already short of refs and adding a huge section about refrigeration without any references is just making this worse and probably WP:UNDUE as well. Thanks Bob98133 (talk) 16:35, 21 January 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Deleted from the animal waste section: "However, it should be noted that while these dairies are concentrated, the average productivity of dairy cows more than doubled between 1950 and 1980. The national dairy herd also more than halved in the same time due to the increased efficiency and productivity of the cattle used, suggesting objections are based more on emotional than rational grounds.  "  The ref appears to support the fact that dairy cows are more productive, which might fit somewhere else in the article, but doesn't tie into the waste section.  The suggested inference appears to be less cows equals less waste, which isn't supported by the ref.  An alternative conclusion could be that less cows produce the same amount of milk by eating more thus producing the same amount of waste. Mirboj (talk) 15:04, 26 January 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: For the record, each cow produces the same total waste per cow as it did in 1950. There are half the cows. Therefore half the total waste. They produce at least twice as much milk per cow (on the same amount of food per cow) as their predecessors thus raising the total supply of milk. In the meantime, environmentalists are about ten times more sensitive, and therefore.... (ah well). Student7 (talk) 01:58, 30 January 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Are there any references for these facts, i.e that today's cows are able to produce more milk without producing more waste per cow than their '50s predecessors? Mirboj (talk) 14:36, 30 January 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: I suppose you are right about needing a ref. But these are the same cattle, same species, etc. Mostly Holsteins, or related in the US. Just better milk producers through selection. They can only eat so much, grow so big, etc. Can't breed them any hungrier!  :) Student7 (talk) 16:53, 2 February 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Interesting line of thought, might see what I can dig up when I get a chance with regard to the improvements and changes in dairy cows.Mirboj (talk) 14:43, 3 February 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  How about some references? 

message: This article is about how dairy is produced. Look at the Wiki page. You have a section on how cows are milked, management of the herds and worldwide prevalance. A person has cut and pasted a section regarding the health effects of dairy and it doesn't appear there was any thought process regarding whether this is relevant to this page. Whether or not dairy is healthy or not, doesn't change the fact that it is currently being produced. The health effects of dairy seems to be out of the scope of the page and since there is a page on Dairy already, I have removed this section.DivaNtrainin (talk) 04:14, 26 November 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Is a section on the health effects of dairy relevant to this Wiki article? 

message: The article "Dairy" is the same article, only better organized and well-written.
What is the purpose of this "Dairy farming" article?
Should we have a separate "Dairy farming" article at all?
I am going to suggest a redirect. 
--AslanEntropy (talk) 02:01, 28 December 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: Oppose Redirect These two articles should remain separate and distinct. One should be about facilities that refine dairy products and the dairy farm shold be about the production of milk by bovines, not camels, etc. 208.54.40.188 (talk) 05:15, 27 July 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Dairy farming" vs "Dairy" page: suggest redirect 

message: Suggesting it is one thing, doing it without any discussion on the same day you suggested it will not fly. Do not redirect without much discussion over some time. That is the way it supposed to be done. And now that it has been undone and challenged it most definitely needs to be done.
:Oppose Redirect These two articles should remain separate and distinct. One should be about facilities that refine dairy products and the dairy farm shold be about the production of milk by bovines, not camels, etc. 208.54.40.188 (talk) 05:15, 27 July 2014 (UTC)
thread_title: Improper redirect

message: There's inconsistent statistics for US dairy--first the US is credited with 65,000 dairy farms, then Wisconsin is claimed to have 78,000 dairy farms. I'd suggest using the same source for both, or better still stats for the top ten states, not just WI.Bill Harshaw (talk) 12:10, 22 July 2015 (UTC)
thread_title: Statistical Problem

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thread_title:  External links modified 

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thread_title:  Orphaned references in [[:Dairy farming]] 

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message: the article seems written from the point of view is dairy producers. it doesn't cite scholarship in animal studies, such as recent work by Gabriel Rosenberg, Samantha Pergadia, and others Breakupalbum (talk) 05:59, 31 July 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  bias in article 

message: Hi hssssaahxhxhx hshsvsnash, bbsxhx 103.214.63.169 (talk) 09:39, 25 October 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Diary farming