Milking is a sticking point in ‘12 Days of Christmas’

“The Farm Girl” in the oil painting by Frenchman Alfred Roll has a name. She is Manda Lamétrie, born in 1867. Manda was scarcely 20 when Roll painted her portrait in 1887. 

She ran a farm where she raised a horse and three cows near Sainte-Marguerite-sur-Mer, on the Normandy coast. This painting is one of Roll’s most important works, according to the curator at the Musée d’Orsay, the famous art museum in Paris, France. 

“Roll has put one of the cows, after milking, in the green orchard bordered by a hedge that forms the background of this painting.” 

“Manda forms a monumental figure in the center of the painting attracting the eye with her light-colored clothing, particularly the large, pale yellow rectangle of her apron. Her determined expression is no less striking,” the museum spokesperson said.

 “She supplemented her income with shrimp fishing on the coast and keeping an eye on holiday houses, including Castel d’Ailly, which was Roll’s summer home.” 

A reproduction of the striking painting might be an acceptable substitution for the eight maids-a-milking in the holiday song, “The Twelve Days of Christmas.” “The Farm Girl is available online through an art gallery in Sofia, Bulgaria. The art is 35.8 inches tall by 26 inches wide. The price tag is $567. 

April Lee, a contributor to Mother Earth News, has delved into one of the profound issues of our time: “Do cows like being milked?”

“The dairy industry is finding itself under scrutiny,” Lee said. “Animal advocates are asking: Is being milked a pleasant experience for dairy cows?” 

“Cows that have udders full of milk will willingly stand to be milked. The process of milking a cow is almost the same as if a calf were suckling,” Lee said. She is persuaded to conclude: “Yes, cows do enjoy being milked…if dairy farms are managed properly by trained and compassionate human beings,” Lee wrote.

“Small farms with a few cows can hand milk their cattle daily instead of relying on a machine,” Lee said. “If a dairy farm has a large herd of cattle to milk, then milking machines are far more efficient and cost-effective than hiring dozens of workers to milk the cows by hand.”

Dairy cows need to be milked on a regular schedule to relieve discomfort from the pressure of full udders, typically twice a day, 12 hours apart. They clearly do not like not being milked. 

The late Jerry Schleicher, the cowboy poet, once wrote: “Most cows are better behaved than a room full of first graders. Not only do they solemnly walk single file behind the herd boss to the feed bunk, they know their place in line. Every dairy cow in the country knows if she’s the third, 10th or 20th cow to be milked.” 

Steve Judge, a micro dairy expert in Royalton, Vt., said his most valuable commodity is time. His cows average around 2 1/2 gallons per milking. “Getting that much milk out of a cow by hand takes time, maybe a 1/2-hour per cow or more and that whole time you are stuck under the cow and can’t do anything else.” 

“If you milk your cows with a good machine milker, it takes about 5 to 10 minutes per cow,” Judge said. “And while your cow is milking, you can do other chores. Multi-tasking is essential on a small herd dairy. I need to get my chores done quickly so I can go to my day job.”