When I was in elementary school, my class took a field trip to a dairy farm. Mathis Dairy in Atlanta had been in business for over half a century, and each week a uniformed delivery man brought glass bottles of fresh milk to our house. As a child, I was not merely tolerant of lactose — I guzzled the stuff every day. So, when I heard we were going to see where they made the essential ingredient in breakfast cereal, I could hardly wait.
Mathis Dairy was the biggest such operation in the city. It was the land that flowed with milk and money, and the star attraction was a Holstein named Rosebud. Several times each week, the patient cow stood surrounded by giggly school children, most of whom had never set foot on a farm. One by one, each child got to sit on a stool with a metal bucket and give Rosebud a squeeze.
The dairy had been letting visitors try their hand at bovine husbandry since the 1950s, and several generations of Atlanta residents still have a souvenir button that says, “I Milked Rosebud.” The tour guide told us that lots of famous people had done it, too, including Jimmy Carter. I couldn’t believe that I had been under the same cow as the president. Only one degree of separation from the White House.
But just as glass milk bottles are virtually a thing of the past, so also may be the process of milking cows by hand. These days, many farms are letting robots do the job.
According to an article my mother saved for me from The Atlanta Journal Constitution, Georgia “has lost 40% of its dairy farms in the last decade.” One reason is that it’s hard to find employees who want to fill those buckets three times per day, seven days a week. That’s why the larger firms are investing in technology that not only gives the cows a mechanical squeeze, but also a rubdown at the same time.
The animals mosey into a stall, and machines take over, positioning cups, oiling the udders, and even measuring the exact rate of production per cow. Meanwhile, the process also involves a pedicure and a leg massage. “The cows love it,” one farmer said. At his farm, the bovines walk around on brand-new rubber mats that cost $100,000.
I sometimes wonder if journalists are just messing with us, and when I read about spa treatments for cattle, I thought surely “The Journal” had gone rogue. But after some independent research — and by “independent research,” I mean 40 seconds on Wikipedia — I learned that every bit of this is true. The idea started in Sweden, I’m told.
Of course it did. When it comes to pampering, no one tops the Swedes.
Milk production is up from these contented cattle, but there may come a time when the cows will no longer settle for a sea-salt rubdown. Pretty soon they will insist upon hot stones and aromatherapy, and then we’ll see them with face cream and cucumbers over their eyes. Body wraps and hair coloring will come next, followed by extractions and sugar scrubs. Eventually, school children will be sporting buttons that read, “I Exfoliated Rosebud.”
However, I suspect no child will want to be present for the juice cleanse.
The Holsteins may be living it up with this new system — milking it, as it were — but they should beware. All technology comes at a price. These machines are ruthless data collectors, measuring exactly how much milk each cow has given in the last 10 months, down to the last drop. This means that the pressure to produce will be worse than ever.
One farmer bluntly told “The Atlanta Journal” that he plans to monitor the cows and “keep the ones that do well. Those that don’t are still marketable as meat.”
For centuries, conversations on the dairy farm went something like this:
Bill: “You know, Elsie don’t seem like she’s fillin’ the bucket like she used to.”
Tom: “Maybe she’s grazing in some bad grass. Take her over yonder and see.”
Now, you are more likely to hear this discussion:
Bill: “Elsie gave 22.6% less milk today than last Tuesday, which was down 13 points from the previous week, not to mention the 0.4 ounces of foreign matter floating in the bucket.”
Tom: “Alright. Let’s call Burger King.”
This is how the robots take over. First, they lure our cows into a state of pampered serenity. Mechanical spa treatments for dogs will not be far behind, as Fido will be a sucker for a robotic belly rub. Once the cows and the puppies are helpless to resist, it will not be hard to do the same thing to humans. Think about that the next time C-3PO offers to thread your eyebrows.
