Our first plan when we get there is to go to Killarney National Park and do some hiking.
We'll have to play it by ear though... our stretch of beautiful weather looks like it's set to end this Saturday. We had wanted to climb Carrauntoohil, Ireland's highest mountain, but it's not a good idea if the weather isn't cooperating. So we'll see.
The family all arrived back yesterday afternoon after their three day wedding event. I think they were all pretty much done! But we had a nice dinner... Ruth made spaghetti and meat balls and a salad. Really good.
So this morning at 7:30am, we were down at the main operations of the dairy farm where our host Joe gave us the insider tour. We don't think we've ever seen something like this in operation. It was pretty interesting!
A cow with her little one.
Ready for milking at 7:30am.
The farm has been here since the 1600's!
Except of course so much of the process is automated now. They installed a new rotary system here in 2018 where the cows go into the big pen above, and then are shuffled onto a big round platform one by one. The cows have incentive, because there is a small amount of a special grain that they like that is fed to them while they are being milked.
The worker attached the milking system to the cow.
When you get good at it, it only takes seconds to attach it. They are held on by a vacuum system with a sensor that measures the flow of milk, then the vacuum cuts off automatically when the flow is low enough to know that the cow is pretty much empty and the attachments just drop off by themselves.
Being milked.
The entire circular platform rotates very slowly.
It takes 8 to 10 minutes to milk the cow and do one rotation the platform. But they have about 600 cows to milk! It takes just around two hours to milk the herd, and they do it twice a day.
It was really interesting.
Gotta get going... we have some groceries to do, then get some fuel, and then get on the highway!
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Record low deal on the 6 Pack of Goodwipes Flushable Travel Wipes.
And in Canada...
I saw that process of the cows getting off and on the wheel by themselves at milking time. It was at the Leche Lala plant in Coahuila. Really cool. A huge production.
ReplyDeleteYeah, the Leche Lala plant would have been a huge operation and I am sure their rotating milking parlor would have been much bigger that Joe's. It is definitely something neat to see!
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